Ectotale
by EmeraldSeaGamer
Summary: Danny doesn't remember exactly how he'd fallen, but all he knows is he has to get out of the UNDERGROUND to see his friends and family again. But with monsters lurking around every corner, it being unclear who's a friend or a foe, whether or not to flirt with the skeleton seems to be the least of his problems.
1. Chapter 1

**YEAH I KNOW I PUT UP A POLL BUT THIS IS SUPER FUN TO WRITE, GUYS.**

Danny opened his eyes to sunlight and golden flowers.

"What…" he lifted himself up with his elbows, pushing himself into a sitting position. "Where am I…?" he muttered, looking around him at the dark stone walls. It appeared that he was in the only spot of sunlight in the entire place… wait…

Danny looked straight up and felt his jaw drop to the floor. Right up above him… was a gigantic hole in the ceiling. It went up too far for him to see the sky.

Did… did he _fall_ from that? How? When?! Most importantly, how did he survive? Danny looked down at the flowers he had fallen on. Maybe these had broken his fall…? Or maybe it was his ghost half…

Wait! His ghost half! Danny snapped his fingers triumphantly. He could use it to fly up there and go back home! Danny stood up and called out "I'm Going Ghost!" Just because he could. He transformed into his ghost half easily, which proved he wasn't hurt by his fall. Phew, that's a relief.

Danny began flying upwards quickly, getting closer and closer to the sunlight. Well, that was easier than he expected. Now all he has to do is fly out of this hole and find Sam and Tucke- AAGH!

Danny found himself hitting some invisible barrier and falling back down to the flowers. He barely had time to process all of this before he hit the ground, landing on his arm wrong and hearing a _crack!_ The ghost boy found himself switching back to his human form without his own prompting.

Danny sat up again, groaning in pain from his injured arm. Well, that certainly didn't work. But… why not? Well, he certainly wasn't going to try again to find out. Danny looked around the room again in search for a possible way out of this mess, and to his surprise, he saw a passageway he hadn't noticed before in his confusion.

Danny stood up with a grunt and walked over to the darker hallway, holding onto his injured arm to keep it from jostling. "Well," he reasoned to himseIf that if I can't go out the easy way, I might as well go find some other way. Besides," he said, now standing in front of a doorway to an even darker room. "Maybe there's a way out beyond this… strangely well designed for a cave, and purple, doorway…" he squinted at it suspiciously.

…

Oh well then. He stepped into the room.

Danny looked around the dark room until he spotted a ray of light directly in the middle of it.

… How is there sunlight without another… oh. There's another hole in the ceiling.

… okay.

Danny walked closer to the ray of light, and then _pop!_ Out of the little patch of grass came a flower. Now, this wouldn't be _too_ weird if the flower wasn't _three feet tall_ and had a _face._ Danny would have kept walking, though, if the thing hadn't _talked._

"Howdy!" said the _demon plant._ "My name is Flowey! Flowey the flower!"

Danny just stood there, staring at it. He was stuck in a half-cringing-half-about-to-attack-pose. He didn't exactly know why he was so extremely freaked out by the flower, but he just… really didn't like it's face. Look at it, it's smiling. That's creepy.

Flowey seemed unfazed. "You're new to the Underground, arentcha?" He said. "Golly! You must be so confused! Someone ought to teach you how it works around here!"

Danny continued to be pretty freaked out, but he had relaxed somewhat. He was still very confused, though. What does it mean by 'Underground?' Is _that_ where he was? Well… the name definitely did make a lot of sense. Flowey continued talking.

"I guess little old me will have to do!" It winked. Or, _he_ winked? Danny wasn't sure. They? Yeah sure. They works. Danny's thoughts were interrupted when his surroundings were suddenly devoid of all color, and a weird pulsing yellow _heart_ flew out of his chest. Danny was so mesmerised by the heart thing that he barely even registered the Flower's first sentence. He looked up.

"See that yellow heart?" It said "That's your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!"

… What? His soul? Right there?! Unprotected?! Danny reached out and grabbed his soul, pulling it close to his chest. He thought it was weird that it was so… tangible. Unfortunately, the soul drifted out of his hands and back in front of him. Oh, the flower was still talking. Danny was bad at paying attention.

"... Why, LOVE of course! You want some love don't you?"

Danny nodded hesitantly. He could go for some love, he guessed.

"Well, down here, LOVE is shared through little… white… 'friendliness pellets."

… Okay, Danny could _hear_ the air quotes around that. And was it just him, or was this flower putting the word 'love' in capital letters?

"Go ahead!" The flower said. "Catch as many as you can!" And it sent a bunch of seed things straight at his heart. Now, Danny could admit that he's pretty jumpy when things get thrown straight at his very heart and soul. He was just a _little bit_ _suspicious_ of these 'friendliness pellets,' so who could blame him when his powers started acting up just a bit?

So, of course, Flowey seemed a bit confused when his friendliness pellets passed straight through Danny's soul as if it wasn't even there.

"What?" He said, cheery voice gone. "What is this? What are you doing?"

Danny just looked at him, cleared his throat, and shrugged. Flowey seemed less then happy, and he sent more bullets-

Eh, _pellets,_ at Danny's soul, only for it to go intangible again.

Okay, _now_ he was angry. The flower's voice and face turned demonic, and Danny flinched back, grabbing his soul again.

"You know what's going on here, **don't you?**

 _ **You just wanted to see me**_ _ **SUFFER.**_

Well, in this world, it's _**KILL**_ **or** **BE KILLED.**

And who could pass up a chance like this?"

The Flower surrounded him with bullets and laughed. " **DIE.** "

Right when Danny was about to turn intangible again, the Flower stopped, and was hit right in the face with a ball of fire. That chased it away pretty quick. Danny looked around and was met with the sight of… a giant goat woman?

Okay, now things were getting _real_ weird. Danny got into a defensive position as she began talking.

"What a miserable, horrible creature," she said. "Picking on such an innocent youth." She then noticed the way Danny was standing. "Oh! Do not be afraid, my child, I will not harm you. I am TORIEL, caretaker of the ruins." She noticed how he was holding his arm and began to quietly freak out. "Oh! Are you hurt?! Here, allow me to heal you."

Danny looked at her very suspiciously, but he couldn't see any hint of malice in her expression. Just… motherly concern. He held out his arm hesitantly, and winced a bit. Toriel took his arm carefully, and Danny felt the warm tingle of _Magic_ go up and down his arm. Toriel let him go and he flexed his arm, pleasantly surprised when it no longer hurt. He looked up at Toriel, who was smiling in relief.

"Are, uh…" he started, a bit tentatively. "Are you a ghost…?"

Toriel's eyes widened, and she _laughed_ , like he was _joking!_

"No," she said, still giggling. "I am not a ghost, my child. Though I do know one who drifts around the ruins, but he is rather shy…"

Danny started a bit. Okay, so _she_ wasn't a ghost, but there was a ghost in the ruins? He hoped it was friendly… and did she just call him a child? Danny knew he was short, but come on! He was _fourteen!_ Almost old enough to get a driver's permit! He thought about telling her that, but he remembered that she probably wouldn't know what a car is. Maybe. Toriel was talking again.

"Come, child, I will guide you through the catacombs."

There were _a lot_ of puzzles in the ruins. Toriel was guiding him through puzzle after puzzle to get to where they were going. Sure, they were all super easy, but there were also a bunch of weird signs. Like that one that told him to press Z to read signs. What does it mean, "press Z?" He could read signs very well with his eyes, thank you very much. And Toriel kept on praising him for finishing the most simple of puzzles! It wasn't like being praised was really nice or anything, nope. He wasn't really enjoying this _at all._

… ahem.

At some point they got to a room with nothing but a dummy in it. Danny sensed something odd about the dummy, and when his ghost sense triggered, he realized what that dummy was stuffed with besides cotton. Toriel told him that he had to enter a fight with the dummy, but he had to talk to it. Danny was really tempted to just blast the ghost into oblivion, but he decided to humor Toriel for a bit.

Danny entered a fight with the Dummy, and as his soul floated back out of his chest, he noticed the option buttons in front of him. That's… strange. The buttons said _fight, act, item,_ and _mercy._ Danny looked at them all, and his gaze lingered on _fight_. That _was_ what he was used to seeing, after all. Danny pressed the button after a moment's consideration, and he sent just one ectoblast at the thing. The dummy just _blew up._ Danny wondered with a bit of panic if he had just destroyed the ghost as well, but he saw just a bit of white as something flew out of the dummy's wreckage. He let out a breath. Good, he hadn't re-killed anyone. Toriel, on the other hand, seemed stricken. She told him to please just talk to other monsters before just blowing them up with an attack. Danny nodded at her. Be wasn't going to just _kill_ someone after all.

Danny and Toriel continued on, and it was right before another puzzle when he encountered his first monster (which was apparently what they were called). The monster was just a very large frog. Danny looked at his options, and at the fight button. The thought of the froggit exploding just like the dummy made him feel sick. Danny didn't really wish that on anyone… well, maybe Vlad… And his future self… well, anyway. Danny picked the _act_ button and decided to compliment the frog. It didn't really seem to understand what he had said, but it blushed anyway. It then attacked with flies, which Danny dodged. He decided that dodging was easy enough without his powers, so he would keep the extent of them hidden for now. Nobody really needed to know about the whole 'half-ghost' thing. Toriel came over after the Frog's attack, and intimidated it off. Well, that was easy enough.

After that, they came to a spike puzzle, and Toriel had to hold hands with him as they crossed. Toriel really reminded Danny of his mother; Overprotective and willing to fend off enemies with fire.

They left and then eventually came to a very long hallway, the end of it shrouded in darkness. Toriel turned to this.

"I have a difficult request to ask of you, my child," she said anxiously. "I would like you to walk to the end of this hall by yourself. Forgive me for this." She then ran faster than Danny thought would be possible for her. She disappeared into the darkness, leaving behind a very confused Danny.

"Uh…" said Danny. "...okay."

He then jogged to the end of the hall without difficulty.

When he reached the end of the hall (which seemed a lot lighter now that he was actually there) Toriel jumped from behind a pillar and stood in front of him.

"Do not be afraid, my child, I was merely behind this pillar the entire time. This was necessary to test your… independence."

Okay, seems legit. Toriel then told Danny that he'd have to stay here for awhile while she goes to do something. She left, but she gave him a phone, though it was horrifyingly old. Tucker would have freaked out if he were here…

Okay so now he was a bit sad. What were his friends thinking right now? Were they looking for him? What about his parents? And Jazz? They were probably all freaking out! Danny _really_ needed to get out of here to see them. He didn't know where this place was, he didn't remember how he fell, but he at least knew the name of the place.

Danny knew that he really needed to leave the UNDERGROUND.

 **Welcome all! Okay so I started a new story really quickly. So, if you came here because you followed me after reading Ghosts and Magic, then hi! Welcome back to another story! You may or may not know what Undertale is, so I recommend buying it. (Or watching it if you don't have ten dollars to buy it on steam) You won't regret it. Unless you play the genocide run cuz then you'll regret it. But maybe you just got here and don't know who I am or what Ghosts and Magic is, and you just want to see what would happen if Danny went in the Underground. Well hi! Welcome! I promise to finish this fic no matter how few people read it, because unfinished fics annoy me. Well, I guess that's about it for the introductions. After all, author's notes must be boring to read, especially if you read them in the future and you want to press the button to get to the next chapter but you want to read the old notes no matter how old and dorky they are to be nice but they're so** _ **long**_ **and** _ **dorky**_ **and they keep rambling and you're freaking out because it's** _ **still going**_ **and you're getting worried because you want to stop reading but** _ **you're**_ **EmeraldSea and** _ **you're**_ **the author and** _ **you're**_ **writing this author's note right now and** _ **why am I still talking.**_

…

 **But maybe that's just me.**

 **EmeraldSEA you later!**

 **êuē**

 **(P.S. tomorrow is mother's day and I was wondering if the few people reading this chapter would send a review saying nice things to my mom, like how awesome and fantastic she is. What is that? You don't know her? Well ya don't need to, she's great, just take my word for it. It would be a nice surprise for her because I'm terrible and all I have is a dollar. I just want her to read nice messages from people she doesn't know, don't judge me.**

 **If you send a review I'll update really soon, by the way.**

 **What's that? This is a very obvious bribe?**

 **AHAHAHAHAHA… whaaaat?)**


	2. Leaves and More Leaves but Also Ghosts

**OKAY GOOD ENOUGH HERE'S YOUR CHAPTER**

 **Quick note: Danny can't see the save points, because although he certainly has a ton of determination, he has a soul of JUSTICE, not of DETERMINATION. I think only the DETERMINATION souls can save and reset, because it would give an explanation as to why all of the other children's souls didn't come back after dying. They just didn't have enough DETERMINATION. BUUUT that means I get to fill this with HEADCANONS. AHAHAHAHAHA. Disclaimer:**

 **OOh yeah and I don't own Danny Phantom or Undertale or any of their respective characters. They're not mine. This is the first and last Disclaimer I'm going to put in this story because this is a FanFiction site and I don't even know why I should add these.**

…

As soon as Danny put _one_ foot outside of the hall, Toriel called him. Danny listened to the ringtone for a bit. If only it had a cooler tone, like: _dododoweedododooodoweedodo_

 _Gonna catch em all cuz he's Danny Phantom._

Nice.

Danny answered the phone. Toriel was just calling to make sure he was still in the room. Danny stepped outside of the room completely and then looked back into it with a somewhat guilty expression.

"Suuure…?"

Toriel seemed happy, and she hung up. Well, what she doesn't know can't hurt her, right…? Yeah. Danny looked over and noticed one of those 'Froggit' things, and debated walking past it, but the thing just talked to him anyway… somehow. Wait, these things are sentient?!

The frog told him about mercy, and how he should use it. Ah, okay then. Might as well use mercy, don't want to make anyone explode. Especially _sentient frogs._ Danny's mind was officially blown, so he walked past the frog and into the room next to it with speed people usually only have when walking to a bathroom. He finds himself in a room wherein there was nothing but two streams of water and a bowl of candy.

Danny walked over to the candy and noted the sign that said "take one," and he took an entire handful of them with no remorse. Unfortunately, he accidentally knocked over the entire bowl in the process, and he watched as it shattered against the ground with maybe a _little_ bit of remorse. Then he took the rest of the candy and stuffed it in his jean pockets.

How disgusting.

Danny didn't care.

Danny walked out of the room while chewing on some candy (tasted kinda gross but it was candy, so), and he spotted some leaves lying in the corner, completely randomly placed in a nice cushiony pile and _oh he wanted to jump in them so bad._

But Danny was a _responsible teenager,_ and _responsible teenagers_ don't-

He jumped into the leaves and had the time of his life.

Danny stood up out of the leaves and brushed himself off in a very refined and _responsible_ manner, pretending he didn't just spend the last two minutes rolling around in a pile of leaves. But for whatever reason, he was filled with the sense of… something. Maybe ridiculousness. He should probably get going.

Danny set off on a journey full of puzzles and battles and _more_ puzzles and _more battles_. It was pretty uneventful, (other than Toriel's strange calls about cinnamon and butterscotch and which one he liked the most) but he actually had a whole lot of fun. There's just something about the sense of accomplishment that comes from figuring out puzzles and sparing monsters. Especially since he had found cool stuff, like _actual gold_.

Well, it _might_ be real, Danny wasn't sure, but it looked and felt like gold, so it was good enough for him. And what's with all the sassy signs and rocks around here, sheesh…

So Danny was just swaggering around with his gold and such, finishing puzzles and acting like the boss of the place, when he encountered a ghost.

It wasn't like the ghosts he was used to, it was more of a sheet costume but transparent and with an actual face. It was saying Z out loud repeatedly, pretending to be asleep.

"Are they gone yet…" asked the ghost, which ruined the facade entirely. Danny wasn't very threatened by this ghost, in fact, he wasn't spooked _at all._

 _At all._

Well, if the ghost wasn't going to move, then he was going to have to use _excessive force._

"Um," Danny started. "'scuse me… ghost, can you move?"

And then they entered a fight. Okay then.

Danny found himself actually feeling sorry for this… guy (apparently named Napstablook), as all of his attacks seemed accidental. In fact, all he was doing was crying all over Danny. Danny decided to try to cheer Napstablook up. And what other way to do that than with puns- I mean clever banter?

And so that's what he did. So many ghost-based puns were said it was almost illegal. Blook seemed to enjoy it, though. After a bit, Napstablook decided to show his own skills. He started crying again and he cried himself a hat made out of tears.

"I call it 'Dapperblook,'" he said.

Danny had to keep himself from laughing. He wished _that_ was one of his ghost powers. He gave the ghost a thumbs up and a smile, and they seemed happy.

"Oh… I usually come here to be alone, but today I met someone nice… oh, I'll get out of your way…"

Danny waved goodbye as Napstablook turned invisible. He was going to miss that guy. Danny continued on until he was met with two path choices. He took the one straight ahead of him, and it lead to a Froggit who told him about how Toriel had come through here with groceries. Danny took a moment to ponder that. Groceries? Where had she gotten them? The only food Danny had seen was the monster candy (which he still had a _lot_ of in his pockets), the donut he had gotten after giving some gold to some spiders (which he was still confused about), and the vegetables he'd gotten from that one carrot monster in the place where he'd found an old ribbon (which he totally did _not_ tie up in his hair, _what are you talking about)_ and had briefly seen Napstablook again. Danny supposed she could have gotten them from other food monsters, but that's pretty weird. Oh well.

And _what_ was Toriel doing that _took_ _this_ _long._ Danny sighed and checked the doorway next to the Froggit. (Which had to be the fifth frog he had passed; honestly, why are there so many?) What he saw made his jaw drop.

There was a view of the ruins, all of the buildings falling apart and making a city of- well, ruin. Danny stepped out a bit more and only tore his eyes away from the view when he realized he had stepped on something. Kneeling down, he realized it was a toy knife.

… hmmm…

Well he certainly wasn't going to need _that._ He had _ghost powers._

And really, who can even get hurt by a toy knife.

Danny stood back up, leaving the knife on the floor. He gazed at the view of the ruins one last time, and then retraced his steps back and took the other pathway.

Danny stepped into the room and noticed an out of place gnarled tree just… sitting there. Okay then. He hadn't taken more than a couple steps before Toriel rushed beside the tree and he froze. Toriel muttered to herself and put in a number on her phone, which was apparently Danny's number, since his phone was the one to ring. Toriel's head whipped up and around and she rushed over to Danny in concern.

"Oh! My child! Are you hurt? Here, let me heal you. How did you manage to get through all of those puzzles by yourself?"

Danny shrugged, deciding to not mention how he actually _hadn't_ solved some of them and had just fazed through the spikes.

Because he's a cheater.

But not on tests he's not a cheater on tests never on tests nope.

Toriel accidentally spoiled a surprise that Danny actually really didn't see coming. Maybe he was too focused on moving rocks…? Oh well. He followed Toriel into her house and was enchanted by how incredibly adorable it was compared to the rest of the ruins. As he was led down the right hallway, Danny glimpsed the stairway down to what he assumed was the basement. In Danny's experience, basements usually hid some secret doorway or portal to a whole other dimension or place, but he didn't think Toriel would have something like that in her house. Haha, silly Danny.

Toriel led him to the first door down the fight hallway. She pat him on the head and then raced off to save the burning 'surprise' which was apparently a butterscotch cinnamon pie. Danny was relieved because he hadn't known which he liked the most out of the two when Toriel had popped the incredibly incremental question.

Danny stepped into the room and was surprised by how utterly _childlike_ and _old_ it was. But it still looked pretty well cared for. Toriel must have taken care of this room for years, waiting for a child to fall down… which sounded kind of creepy, but surprisingly wasn't. As Danny rooted through the stuff in the room, he found a box filled with old children's shoes OC various sizes. He wondered why all of the people who fell down here were children. That was weird. Danny went over to the bed to ponder this and _\- wow the bed was surprisingly soft._ And very comfortable. Surely nobody would mind if he just closed his eyes for a few minutes…

…

Danny woke up to a dark room. Be wondered why is was dark for a moment, then realized Toriel must have turned the lights off while he was asleep. He then looked down and saw a piece of pie laying on a plate on the ground, and noticed that the blankets were mysteriously over him now instead of under him.

Wow. Toriel is _really_ motherly. She was like a- a _goat mom_.

Danny just really thought about this deeply. She was just a lonely goat mom hanging out in the ruins and waiting for children to fall down and make her less lonely and more mom. That was _very_ sad. Wait, but where did all the children go… did they all die…? Danny looked back at the box of children's shoes. _How_ did they all die…

Oh well, no point thinking on an empty stomach, right. Danny took the pie and started eating it as he walked out of the room and into the hallway. He looked right and then left, and then went left to where he knew there were rooms he could look in. What? Snooping? He's never heard of such a thing! How absurd…

Danny walked into Toriel's room. There really wasn't much to look through, but he saw an open book on the desk and immediately bee-lined for that. Danny ate more pie as he looked at the red circled passage in the book.

"Why did the skeleton want a friend?

Because he was feeling _BONELY."_

Danny's eyes widened and he tried to not spit pie everywhere. _Wow_. He didn't know that Toriel was _that_ kind of person. He read some of the other jokes on the page and snickered quietly, and before he left, he wondered briefly why the one about a lonely skeleton was circled in red. He shrugged and left it alone.

When walking outside of the hall, Danny noticed a mirror. He walked over to it to get a better look at himself.t

Hmm. Well, he didn't look all too different. Danny was still wearing his white top with the one red circle, and his plain blue jeans. He had a few smudges of dirt on his cheek and clothes, but not alot. He also had a red ribbon tied not-so-discreetely around a lock of his hair, and one leaf sticking to it as well. He also had serious bed hair. Danny smoothed down his hair and picked off the leaf, then took a last bite of his pie and headed towards where he knew Toriel should be. When he walked into the living room, he was surprised about how it seemed even more homely than any home he's be in on the surface… Which actually makes sense because Amity Park is very strange and Danny recalls several times when he had found a ghost hot dog in his cereal box.

Talk about a surprise inside.

Danny walked up to Toriel, who was sitting in her chair, knitting. She looked up at him and smiled.

"Ah, you are awake!" she said. "Just in time, as I have just finished making something for you."

She lifted up her knitting, and presented him with a light pink sweater with yellow stripes. Danny took it from her and examined it with surprise. Toriel looked slightly apologetic.

"I would have made it red to match your shirt, but I have run out of it, so I suppose this should do. And I noticed your soul was yellow…"

Danny smiled and put it on. The sleeves were slightly too long.

"It's perfect, I _love it."_

Toriel smiled and Danny thought about how fast she knit that sweater, like dang. Toriel told him that there's more pie in the kitchen if he wants it, and pulled out a book and some reading glasses. Danny walked into the kitchen and was kind of intimidated by the size of the pie. He didn't really think he needed it, what with his candy filled pockets and that one spider donut he was still afraid to eat, so he left the pie and quickly looked into the fridge. All that was there was one single brand name chocolate bar. For some reason, Danny felt like he should leave that there.

Danny thought about how he was going to tell Toriel that he needs to leave. She was just so… _mom-like_ , it would be nearly impossible to tell her that. He probably could just leave without her noticing, but… she just seems so sad, and so lonely… but Danny couldn't leave his friends and family to fend for themselves in a town full of ghosts. Danny already had a mom, a family, and he wouldn't just abandon them. Not even for this really nice goat lady.

Danny stepped outside of the kitchen, still thinking. He noted that Toriel was still quietly reading, and desperate for something to do to procrastinate what he had to ask her, Danny walked over and grabbed a book from her bookshelf. It looked like it was about the history of monsters. Danny read about the war and how monsters were apparently forced down into the UNDERGROUND and kept there with a magical barrier. Danny realised that he must've hit the barrier when he'd tried to fly out earlier. Danny read a bit more, and he started to feel indignant about the fact that the monsters were trapped there. Many of them had probably never seen a sunrise before, or a sunset, or even the- the _stars._ Danny started at that. They've never seen stars before! That's _awful._ He didn't wish that on anyone…

Danny suddenly felt something deep down, in his soul. It was a feeling of… of… justice. Yeah, that's it, JUSTICE. Danny wanted to bring JUSTICE to all of the monsters who had been trapped in the UNDERGROUND for so many years, he wanted to set them free.

And the only way to do that, was by getting out of the ruins.

Danny walked over to Toriel with a glint of guilt in his eye as she smiled at him. Toriel told him that she knew he'd have a great time living here, she had prepared a curriculum for his education and wanted to show him her favorite bug hunting spots. Danny gained a bit of a pained expression, but he was also… determined, to make this right.

"How… how can I leave the ruins?"

Toriel started. She looked at him with a bit of worry.

"My child," she said. "That's… nothing of concern. Would you like to hear a fascinating snail fact? Did you know that snails flip their digestive systems as they mature?"

Danny… didn't know that. But that wasn't imported. His expression became more serious.

"I need to know how to leave the ruins."

Toriel looked slightly panicked. She stood up and told Danny to stay right there, she had something she needed to do. Then she raced out of the room and down the stairs. Danny sighed as he followed her. Of _course_ it would be downstairs.

He found himself in a creepy and long hallway. He walked over to where Toriel was standing. She told him that beyond this hallway was the exit to the ruins. She was going to destroy it. She told him not to follow her.

Danny followed anyway.

Toriel said that if he leaves, they, **ASGORE** , would kill him. Danny continued to follow anyway, wondering who Asgore was and why he wanted to kill humans.

Toriel told him that this was his last warning. Danny hesitated before following her again. Last chance before what…?

They finally reached the room with the door, and Toriel stopped in front of it, turning to face him.

"Fine, if you are so insistent on leaving, then you must do one thing…"

She lifted up her hands, which glew with fire magic. Danny's eyes widened and he took a step back.

"Prove yourself! Prove to me that you can survive!"

They entered a battle. Danny was freaking out a bit. He couldn't fight Toriel! How could he ever hurt Toriel?! He dodged the first swarm of fireballs, but he was caught off guard and one grazed his cheek. He yelped in pain. He was never very fond of fire, having an ice core was probably a big factor in that… wait… his ice core! Danny had a brilliant idea! Maybe, to combat the fire, he could turn his soul into ice! Yes, that would definitely work… Danny concentrated on this and his soul formed a coating of ice on it. Danny looked triumphant and Toriel was confused. Another wave of fireballs came his way and Danny tried to dodge, but discovered that he couldn't move. Oh, so apparently covering his soul in ice protected him from fire, but made it so he was frozen in place.

So his soul couldn't get hurt, but he certainly could. Dangit.

Ow.

Ow.

 _Ow._

 _Ow!_

 _Okay,_ fire hurt. Danny looked down at his health bar (suspiciously videogame-like, by the way. He should know, he's been in a videogame before), and discovered that it was dangerously low. Fire is not good, fire bad. Danny looked panickedly at the onslaught of fire heading right towards him. A few more hits, and he'd be toast! (Ha)

Toriel looked nervous as well. "What are you doing? Fight or run away!"

Danny had about five seconds before the fire hit him. That was when he decided that he'd rather let Toriel know he's half ghost lest he becomes _full_ ghost. With that thought, he turned intangible and let the attacks pass right through him. Toriel stopped for a second, shocked.

"What was that?" She asked.

Danny shifted his eyes.

"Uhhh… magic…?"

Toriel squinted her eyes and sent another wave of attacks at him. Danny sighed and turned intangible again. He then pressed mercy. Toriel didn't say anything and sent more attacks.

Danny pressed mercy.

"..."

Mercy.

"..."

 _Mercy._

"..."

This repeated a few times, the number of dots growing exponentially. Eventually Toriel's attacks didn't even hit Danny at all, they just flew past him.

"Please, child," Toriel had a sad and hopeful smile. "you could have a good life here."

… Mercy.

"Please, just go back inside…"

Mercy.

"Why are you making this so difficult…"

Mercy.

"Pathetic, is it not, I cannot save even a single child…"

...Mercy...

"No, you are right. The ruins are rather small once you get used to them, they are no place for a child. You would only be unhappy here. My expectations, my loneliness, my fear, for you, my child, I will put them aside."

Toriel spared him. Danny was a bit relieved, and also a bit heartbroken. Toriel told him that beyond the door is the rest of the Underground. She tells him to be careful, and asks him that once he leaves, to please, don't come back. Toriel hugs Danny and leaves, leaving the halfa standing and facing the door, unable to see her look back. Danny breathed shakily and stepped forward, pulling the door open with skinny arms that held a surprising amount of strength.

He walked into a dark room that bore serious resemblance to one he saw not too long ago. A flower popped out of the ground in the middle of a ray of light.

"You think you're _so_ clever, don't you?" Flowey said. "So you haven't killed anyone yet, **big deal.** But at some point, you'll meet a relentless killer. Then what will you do?"

The flower's face morphed into something demonic. "You'll **DIE and you'll DIE and you'll DIE**. Or will you just kill out of frustration? You're **obviously** capable of it. Your goody two shoes want for JUSTICE isn't going to get you anywhere in the end, and when you break, I'll be there to pick up the pieces. But for now, this is just **too** fun to watch. See you soon!" The flower winked and sank back into the ground. Danny shuddered and walked forward, then paused for a second and shot a couple ectoblasts at the piece of land the flower shows up on. Haha, take that flower. Danny walked forward and stopped in front of the purple doorway. He took a deep breath and let it out, then stepped into the black.

He forced himself to not look back.

…

 **Okay so I decided to change up the dialogue. Since Danny is having different reactions to the things happening, the dialogue is a bit different because of that. Also because I type this all on my phone and I have terrible internet which doesn't allow me to watch videos, so I'm doing this all from memory.**

 **Well, until next time guys!**

 **Flames will be used to light up all these dark rooms, sheesh there's a lot of dark rooms.**


	3. Why the Puns

**Sorry for the wait! I was in a play! All of your reviews never fail to make me happy! I wish my phone wasn't being stupid so I could reply to them. And honestly, this story got more attention than I thought it would in so little time!**

 **Thank you so much!**

 **And YES, download and play the game before reading! If you can't buy it, watch Game Grump's PACIFIST steam train playthrough. Make sure it's PACIFIST. I think theirs is the best.**

 **Note: Sans' lack of proper grammar and capitalization due to his laziness is going to be the death of me.**

 **If you spot some accidental punctuation in his speech that's my bad.**

 **AND REALLY I'M SORRY THIS IS SO LATE A WHOLE TON OF JUNK HAPPENED AND I KEPT ON FORGETTING.**

 **You can't spell procrastination without several letters from my name, after all.**

…

Danny found himself surrounded by… trees…?

Okay, how did trees get underground?

… more importantly, how did _snow_ get underground?

Danny was pretty annoyed by all of this. Just because he had an ice core didn't mean he couldn't get cold. It was a pretty dull cold, but it was still irritating. At least it wasn't lava, now _that_ would have been a problem.

Danny hugged his sweater to himself and got to walking along the path in front of him.

For some reason, he felt like he was being watched.

Danny was looking around nervously when he stepped on a branch. He looked down. It seemed too big to be snapped. He didn't pay it much mind and just kept walking.

 _Crack!_

Danny spun around. The branch was snapped in half. Okay… that was incredibly creepy. He kept walking, more swiftly this time. Danny's better-than-average hearing picked up the sound of very faint footsteps behind him, as if the owner of the feet barely had any weight to make noise with. He spun around and shot an ectoblast towards the source of the noise, and…

There was nothing there.

"jeez, kid"

Danny would later deny the high-pitched yelp that came out of his mouth as he whipped around to find the speaker. What he saw was a short and shadowy figure.

"that was rude… dont you know how to greet a new pal…? youve got to shake my hand."

Danny _really_ didn't want to do that, but hey, he's got ghost powers, so… he took the creepy figure's hand.

The sound of a whoopee cushion echoed not-so-ominously around the snowy forest. It was so unexpected that Danny snickered surprisedly. The shadowy figure wasn't so shadowy anymore, and it was revealed to be a short skeleton (with a strangely un-skeleton-like face…?) wearing a blue hoodie, white-striped shorts, and pink slippers. The skeleton had a wide and permanent-looking smile, and pinpricks of light in his eyes that functioned as pupils.

He was also kinda chubby? But skeletons can't be chubby, so is he just big-boned… oh my god…

"heh, the whoopee cushion in the hand trick, always funny. so, youre a human, right?"

Danny nodded.

"thats hilarious. im sans the skeleton. dont worry, im not going to try to catch ya."

Danny wasn't all that worried anyway. This guy wasn't threatening _at all_. Danny guessed he could pick this guy up and toss him into a snowdrift with no difficulties. He was literally just bones and clothes.

"my brother, on the other hand, oh, hes a human hunting _fanatic._ hey, speaking of my brother, i think i see him over there. follow me."

Danny guessed he had nothing to lose. He shrugged, muttering a "whatever" under his breath, and followed the skeleman. Sans pointed at something with a gloved finger.

"quick," he said. "hide behind that conveniently shaped lamp."

Danny looked over at the lamp and his eyes widened and he attempted to stifle giggles. It was shaped _exactly_ like him. He walked over to it and marveled at how _perfectly_ it fit his weird lanky and kinda short teenage frame. He looked over at Sans with an expression that said " _how? How did you do this?"_

Sans just looked at him with the same permanent grin. Danny decided he better hide behind the lamp, not being one to pass up an opportunity like this in favor of just going invisible. Not long after he had gotten into position, a tall, more skeleton-like skeleton bounded and leaped into the clearing with the grace of a bag of bones with legs. The skeleton was tall (but not as tall as Danny's dad) and the yelled. A _lot._ But Danny was more or less used to self-centric long and boring (though this one was actually pretty funny) monologues from strange creatures who may or may not be enemies. The only difference is that they were always ghosts or even skeleton ghosts, but not just… skeletons. Living skeletons.

Danny was still thinking about all of this when _it happened._

Sans made _a PUN._

And then _winked._

This was much too much for Danny to take standing up. Actually, it was _literally_ too much for him to keep standing still. Danny was so shocked that he stumbled back and slipped on the snow, crashing forwards into the lamp and landing face-first in the snow, right next to the Danny-shaped lamp. He wasn't permanently banned from the chemical lab for being perfectly balanced, after all. He heard it go silent between the two brothers in the clearing.

"uuh…"

"SANS, IS THAT A HUMAN?"

Danny decided to be as still and lamp-like as possible while lying face-first on the snowy pathway. He could imagine seeing the shorter skeleton's amused expression which he could somehow make despite having half of his face permanently frozen in a wide, toothy grin.

Sans paused.

"... no, bro, im pretty sure thats a lamp."

Papyrus waited a moment before responding.

"... OH," he said. "OKAY THEN. AS I WAS SAYING, IF I CAPTURE A HUMAN, I WILL GET ALL OF THE RECOGNITION I RIGHTFULLY DESERVE!"

And so on and so forth. Danny was pretty sure his nose was turning into a nose-flavored popsicle. He wondered what that would taste like…

Suddenly, Papyrus started NYEHEHEH-ing, and the skeleton retreated down the path, only coming back briefly for one last "HEH."

"alright, kid," Sans called over to him. "you can get up now."

Danny finally peeled his face off of the frozen ground and made his way over to the short skeleton a bit grumpily. Sans just smiled at him.

"youre lucky my brother has never seen a human before. he also isnt _too_ familiar with different kinds of lamps, so that was a close one." Sans shrugged. "you can go now, if you stay, you might have to sit through more of my hilarious jokes."

Danny squinted his eyes at the winking skeleton, as he was confused by the fact that skeletons could have eyelids. But he shrugged and started to walk away, only for the skeleton to add one last thing.

"uhh, wait kid, one last thing. i was wondering if you would let my brother actually see you. see, hes been kinda down lately, and i think seeing a human would help brighten his day."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Wait," he said. "Doesn't that completely defeat the purpose of the whole lamp thing? I mean, why couldn't he have just seen me back there?"

Sans looked to the side for a moment, as if he was thinking. Then, he looked back at Danny and shrugged, usual grin non-wavering. Danny sighed and let it drop, walking away. He heard Sans tell him that he'll meet him up ahead, and he wondered how he could do that if be was walking in the opposite direction. But Danny had seen weirder things, and he decided to let it slide.

It didn't take too long for Danny to come across a couple more monsters to fight, and he started to realize the ongoing theme in their names.

They were all puns.

Everything was puns. Danny was suffocating in the sheer amount of puns, he was being absolutely attacked, _assaulted,_ with cheesy humor, and he _loved it._ He might've even been mad if he wasn't so impressed. Was life in general just a pun to these creatures? These magnificent, amazing, punderful creatures.

Okay, enough pun existentialism. Danny had discovered a box. Hooray! And what was in the box? A glove! It was a very tough glove. Danny squinted at it, suspicious. This glove was a little _too_ tough. He already had his magnificent white gloves as a part of his ghost costume, anyway, he didn't need this one. His hands were already tough enough, thank you very much. His tiny, pale, fourteen year old hands. Very tough.

Danny also found himself reading a note he had found on a fishing line. It had a picture of a rather ugly monster, with a phone number on it and a message saying "call me!"

Danny decided not to call. He moved on to the next snowy area.

And who else would be there but the two skelebros! They seemed to be having a conversation about someone named Undyne. Danny did not see any possible way that could have anything that will affect him in the future. It wasn't long before Papyrus had noticed him.

"SANS!" he said in his best opposite-of-an-indoor voice. "WHY IS THE LAMP MOVING? AND WHY IS IT FROWNING? LAMPS SHOULD NOT BE UPSET NOR SENTIENT."

Sans looked at Danny, then back at his brother. "actually bro, i think thats a human."

Papyrus looked at Danny _really_ closely from his position about ten feet away. "NO, I'M PRETTY SURE THAT'S A LAMP?" He said, and then gasped, his gloved hands flying up to his face. "WAIT! I SEE NOW! LAMPS CANNOT HAVE SUCH FASHIONABLE HEAD DECOR! SANS! THAT REALLY IS A HUMAN! WOWIE!"

Danny touched the bow tied up in his hair. He didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. He decided to be a healthy mixture of both… somehow.

"SANS! THIS IS MY CHANCE TO FINALLY BECOME A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL GUARD! I'LL FINALLY BE ABLE TO GET ALL OF THE RECOGNITION I DESERVE!" The taller skeleton turned and looked at Danny with a determined expression on his boney features. "HUMAN! PREPARE TO BE FOOLED AND BAMBOOZLED BY YOUR'S TRULY, THE GREAT PAPYRUS! I WILL CAPTURE YOU, AND YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO THE CAPITAL, AND THEN… AND THEN!

…

WELL, I'M NOT REALLY SURE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. BUT! STILL! NYEHEHEHEHEHEH!"

Papyrus then sprinted away as fast as his boney legs could carry him, which was actually pretty fast, surprisingly. Danny… didn't know how to take all this. He had a whole ton of experience of people trying to capture him, but that was for being a ghost, not a human. This completely flipped his perspective. But Danny didn't really think he had much to fear, anyway. Just a… Skeleton man.

Speaking of skeleton men, Sans seemed pretty pleased with this ordeal.

"heh, thanks kid, Papyrus seemed pretty really happy. and dont worry, ill keep an eye socket out for ya."

Danny blinked. "Eeeeehhh alright. Thanks…? I'll just… move on."

And move on he did. Danny found himself practically surrounded on all sides by weird puzzles that barely even seemed threatening. The only one that seemed to pose any threat at all was the invisible electricity maze, which Papyrus ended up compromising by himself and not noticing his mess up at all. Danny just ended up following the skeleton's footsteps through the maze with almost no problem. The problem happened when Danny accidentally fell against the maze and electrocuted himself a _little_ bit, meaning he now had singed hair and an attitude. Danny also met a bunch of colorful characters along his way (dogs, _so many dogs)_ and slipped on every single patch of ice he came across, and he came across _so many patches of ice._ So now Danny was bruised, singed, grumpy, and still trying to figure out the word search puzzle Sans had left for him, while trying to pick little pieces of monster candy and frozen spaghetti from between his teeth. Then he slipped on more ice.

So the day was just going _great_ so far.

But Danny _did_ have bits of fun here and there. Mostly with dogs. For example, Danny had come across a dog-man who could only sense movement, and so he had fun running in circles in front of him while rapidly turning invisible and intangible and then back to normal like some sort of human rave, while watching the poor guy go absolutely insane. And then he Pat the dog on the head once he realized what a terrible person he was being, and moved on. Danny also encountered a dog couple, who thought he smelled like a ghost and a puppy, and so he was a _ghost puppy._ And so Danny told them his name was cujo, pet them both, and then moved on again as they both entered dog crisis mode.

His favorite dog experience was with Lesser dog, whose neck had grown every time he was pet, and so Danny had pet the dog until he had gone where no dog had ever gone before.

Greater dog was kind of terrifying, but he reminded Danny of the real Cujo. Very, very big and playful.

So, really, Danny was enjoying his time in Snowdin, if only because of the dogs and some of the skeleton shenanigans. He could've done without the slipping on ice, and fighting, and fighting while slipping on ice.

But Danny was touched by that one snowman's story. How he couldn't move and just wanted a piece of himself to go somewhere far, far away. Danny decided to grant that wish. He wasn't Desiree, but he did what he could. So now he had snow in his pockets. It looked like he was trying to keep a souvenir from Snowdin and decided that snow would be the best option, even though it might cause him to get soggy pants. Genius, that is.

In the end of everything, Danny wasn't feeling all that up to any more puzzles. Which was why it was pretty shocking when Papyrus, the most optimistic and incredibly innocent person (skeleton) Danny had ever met, confronted him on a bridge with a _battle gauntlet._ Danny freaked out a tiny bit, looking to all of the weird and dangerous looking contraptions hanging on strings all around him (including the dog, very scary), and he turned to Sans, arms out and gesturing to the incredible weirdness surrounding him. "Seriously?!"

Sans shrugged.

Papyrus went on monologuing about how popular he would be after capturing Danny, and how incredibly easy this all was, and how he was totally _definitely_ about to start the weird gauntlet spinny machine, and how he was about to press it, any minute now…

Papyrus hesitated.

Sans took this opportunity. "hey bro, uh, doesnt look like your pressing anything."

Papyrus looked a bit distressed. "I'M GOING TO! I JUST…"

Sans raised his brow. "bro?"

Papyrus seemed to be thinking of something. "THIS JUST… SEEMS TOO EASY! YES THAT'S IT! THIS IS JUST TOO EASY FOR THE GREAT PAPYRUS!" Papyrus deactivated the machine. Danny was relieved. "IF I CAPTURE THIS HUMAN, I WANT TO DO IT RIGHT! HUMAN! YOU WILL NOT TRUMP THE GREAT PAPYRUS!"

Papyrus nyehehed and… spun away. Huh. Papyrus' exists seemed to be getting more and more ridiculous every time Danny saw him. Sans turned his grin to Danny and winked. "told ya youd be fine. my brother is so cool."

Danny… had nothing to say to that. He sighed and continued on into Snowdin town, and then got the pun.

AHAHAHAHAHAHSJSKVZJFGIL.

Anyway, Danny entered the town and was immediately excited about the shop. He burst in and started collecting things to buy with his ridiculously large amount of gold coins. He picked out a ton of cinnabunnies and ran to the front counter to pay for them. The bunny monster at the counter was a bit surprised. Danny was just sick of eating monster candy and the fried snow Sans had offered him (it was just water). He payed the cinnabunnies and stuffed two into his mouth at once as an excuse to not talk, then ran out of the store. The shopkeeper wondered if that guy was gonna be a new source of entertainment, besides the skelebrothers. He was certainly odd enough.

Danny tried to walk and not choke and die on the cinnabuns as he walked throughout Snowdin. Every monster was surprisingly friendly, considering the ones that had attacked Danny almost every step of his entire journey before then. Danny had met a monster kid (who had no arms and looked like a dinosaur) who said they knew that Danny was a kid because of his striped sweater. Danny looked down at his pink and yellow attire. He had forgotten he was wearing that. It was pretty singed and water-logged by now, though. Danny shrugged and moved on, stuffing more cinnabuns into his mouth.

Danny looked around and was greeted by the sight of many alluring attractions. Like the Snowed Inn (uaaargh) and a bar-ish place called Grillby's, another path he wasn't going to take, and a… Librarby. Danny squinted at the sign. Was he… reading that correctly…? He guessed that was the library, and someone hadn't done the best job on the sign. Jazz would've gone insane… aww now he was kinda sad.

Danny sadly took a bite out of his food and looked at the house he was passing. It looked very… homely. Danny saw no way this could pertain to his future.

Looking ahead, Danny saw nothing but white. He supposed that would be where Papyrus was waiting for him.

"Well," he said, shrugging. "Better get this over with. Besides, what could happen-" Danny grimaced. "Aww I just jinxed it, didn't I."

Danny sighed and headed into the white.

…

 **SORRY. I'm really sorry I took so long! Man I say that way too much nowadays, don't I? Sorry, I just had a whole lot to do! And I hate it when I have a whole lot to do. It's stressful and irritating. But I'm fine! I'M NOT DEAD. As I'm writing this there are people behind me and I'm trying to hide my phone so they don't see that I'm writing FanFiction. A day in the life of Sea. Well I guess it's time to post this chapter already. I feel like I'm forgetting to tell you something but oh well! I think I accidentally erased this chapter like two seconds after copying it, so that was terrifying.**


	4. STRONG LUNGS

***SLAPS YOU WITH AN UPDATE***

 **Okay let's PICK THINGS UP.**

 **ABOUT A QUARTER THROUGH WRITING THIS CHAPTER AND IT IS CLEAR THAT I AM BAD AT PICKING THINGS UP.**

Danny walked into the swirling snow before him, quickly becoming engulfed in the frozen little flakes as they landed silently on the Earth before him, making little patterns that reminded him of stars.

It was _super cool._

Danny walked until he spotted the shadowy figure of Papyrus in the distance.

"HUMAN," Said Papyrus, sounding a bit unsure behind his usual confidence. "I HAVE BEEN THINKING. OF WHAT, YOU ASK? WELL, OF FEELINGS! FEELINGS LIKE FINDING SOMEONE WHO ENJOYS PERFECTLY FROZEN SPAGHETTI!" Danny picked at his teeth a little. "THE FEELING OF FINDING SOMEONE WHO HAS A DEFINING LOVE OF PUZZLES! THE FEELING OF FINDING SOMEONE ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE IN EVERY WAY! THOSE FEELINGS…

ARE WHAT YOU MUST BE FEELING RIGHT NOW!"

Danny held the bridge of his nose, but nodded anyway. It wasn't like he didn't expect something like this to happen.

"YES! EXCELLENT! AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHY I HAVE MADE MY DECISION! HUMAN, I HAVE TO DECIDED TO MAKE YOU MY… MY UH…"

Papyrus looked even more unsure than before. He stroked his bony jaw. "TO… NO." He suddenly looked a bit angry with himself. "NO, YOU CANNOT BE MY FRIEND! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, MUST CAPTURE A HUMAN! PREPARE YOURSELF HUMAN, FOR MY ATTACK!"

Danny stumbled back a step as the battle started. Suddenly, a very… interesting music track started up. Danny was having trouble trying to ignore these sudden bouts of music. They seemed to happen with every monster, but only some had noticeably different ones. This one was… very… fitting, for Papyrus. And actually pretty catchy. Danny was bobbing his head slightly to the beat. Papyrus seemed to notice.

"AH, SO YOU'VE NOTICED MY THEME? YES, IT IS JUST AS GREAT AS ME! ENEMIES LIKE YOU CAN DANCE ALONG TO IT WHILE I THROW BONES AT YOU."

Danny didn't know if he liked the sound of that. "I don't know if I like the sound of that," he said.

Papyrus seemed to take that as a compliment?

"YOU DO NOT NEED TO TRY TO INSULT ME TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT ATTACKING YOU, HUMAN! IT IS ALRIGHT, I'LL JUST ATTACK YOU ANYWAY!"

And attack is what he did. Papyrus sent the first wave of attacks at him, and Danny dodged them easily. _Very_ easily. Very _very_ easily. So easily, in fact, that Papyrus should have seemed suspicious at how easily he had dodged them, but being Papyrus, he wasn't. He hadn't really needed to dodge them anyway, as they were very… small. They would have passed right through his legs. Danny raised an eyebrow at Papyrus, and sweat beaded on the skeleton's skull..

"NYEHEH! TOO EASY FOR YOU…? WELL, HOW ABOUT WHEN I USE MY **SPECIAL ATTACK!"**

Danny remembered Sans having mentioned that to him awhile ago. Something about blue? Being blue? Blue bones? He honestly couldn't remember. All of his thoughts scattered when his soul turned blue in his chest and he felt weird, like gravity had turned against him. Suddenly the bones got bigger, and his soul couldn't move around as easily as before.

Uh oh.

Danny found himself having to jump around manically to avoid the bones coming at him from what seemed like a straight path he couldn't walk away from. The only choice he had was jumping, which he could do strangely well, even without his ghost powers. Danny got over the first wave of bone attacks and put his hands on his knees, panting a bit.

"Ahh… come on man," he looked up at the skeleton. "Give a guy a break… man I'm out of shape…"

Papyrus stood up straighter suddenly. "A BREAK?! OH DON'T BE LAZY!" He stamped his foot on the ground. "SERIOUSLY, THE FIRST HUMAN I MEET IS JUST LIKE MY BROTHER!"

Another wave of bones comes his way. Danny, starting to get a little _bone tired_ of all of this nonsense, decides to tap into his ghost powers a little. So, instead of jumping, he completely inexplicably turns intangible and phases right through the attacks. It wasn't like Papyrus had ever seen a human anyway, maybe he could convince him this was normal. Papyrus seems pretty shocked.

"WOWIE! HUMANS CAN GO INCORPOREAL?! JUST LIKE GHOSTS!"

In a sudden fit of panic, Danny decided not to answer that casually like a normal human being (which he was not) and, instead, shouted " _NO"_ as loud as he could without it turning into a ghostly wail. It's silent for a moment. Then Papyrus speaks.

"I WASN'T AWARE YOU HAD SUCH POWERFUL LUNGS!"

Okay, so Danny didn't really need to work very hard on convincing this guy that that was a normal response. After all, the skeleton had mistaken him for a lamp earlier.

Danny decided to use his smooth talking skills.

"Yes," he said, very convincingly. "Obviously, all humans have, um, _abilities,_ like, you know… magic. Like you guys. You know, monsters."

"WOWIE! THAT'S INCREDIBLE! ALMOST AS INCREDIBLE AS ME! WELL, LET'S SEE IF YOUR HUMAN POWERS CAN STAND UP TO THIS!"

Papyrus sent more bone attacks, and Danny decided to push his luck and go invisible and intangible. Papyrus spun around wildly trying to see him, sending bones in all directions.

"IMPRESSIVE! BUT ALSO REALLY UNFAIR! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FIGHT YOU IF I CAN'T SEE YOU! A VERY COWARDLY APPROACH, IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF! AND I DO! I SAY THAT! SHOW YOURSELF, HUMAN!"

Danny rolled his eyes. Oh well, it probably wouldn't be any fun to just wait out fights like this anyway. Too easy. He turned visible and tangible again, and Papyrus heard the sound of his feel hitting the ground with surprising ease from someone with no ears. The skeleton sent more attacks his way, and Danny grunted, jumping over them and feeling sweat gather on his forehead, despite the snow twirling in flurries all around him. As he landed, Danny decided to consider his _act_ options. There wasn't much, just standard ones like talk, insult… _flirt?_

 _Flirt?!_

 _nononono_ nononononononono.

Yes?

Danny felt torn. Should he flirt? Should he not flirt? When would he have another chance like this? Why would he _want_ another chance like this? All of the possible outcomes and consequences to flirting or not flirting swirled around in his head, just like the weird underground snowflakes. That suddenly reminded him that these snowflakes were not natural, considering they were underground and there was a giant rocky ceiling above him. Then he wondered if he ate it, would it work the same as monster food? What about yellow snow? Did monsters even use the bathroom? Danny was struck with the thought that he hadn't felt the need to use the bathroom since he had fallen into the underground. That was pretty cool. Maybe he should go on a monster food diet…

Papyrus looked concerned.

"UH, HUMAN? WHY ARE YOU STARING AT THE SNOW? IS THIS ANOTHER FORM OF HUMAN MAGIC?"

Danny was snapped out of his weird hazy thinking state at Papyrus' constant incredibly outside voice. He looked at the flirting option, then back at Papyrus.

Flirting option, Papyrus.

Flirting with Papyrus.

What would Sans think?

What would _Sam_ think?

Danny was struck with the thought that if given the option, Sam would _totally_ flirt with a living skeleton. That thought gave him strength.

"Uh," he said, intelligently. "Are you a bomb because, um, you just blew my mind…?"

Papyrus seemed flustered. "W-WHAT?! ARE YOU FLIRTING WITH ME?! BUT WE'RE FIGHTING? WELL, IN ANY CASE, I AM NOT TO BE SWAYED SO EASILY! I AM A SKELETON WITH STANDARDS!"

Danny didn't think he was going to get this far. What do skeletons even like…?

Wait. He knows what they like.

"I can make spaghetti?"

Papyrus reeled back. "OH NO! YOU'RE MEETING ALL MY STANDARDS! NO, WE CAN DATE LATER!"

Date?! Oh. Oh no. Danny had made a huge mistake. He put his head in his hands, falling onto his knees in the snow. He felt like he had betrayed his very heart and soul. Papyrus just thought he was devastated that they couldn't date right that second. Danny didn't know if he was. Danny didn't know anything anymore. One second he was fighting a skeleton, and the next he was flirting with one. When will the vicious cycle of pain come to an end.

Danny eventually had to get up off of the ground to continue fighting Papyrus. The skeleton seemed to dab some new MTT. Brand™ beauty product behind his nonexistent ears every round before Danny's turn. The halfa just really didn't want to know what that was all about. He continued trying to talk or spare Papyrus, finding himself having to jump and swerve a whole lot more as the attacks went on. It was a good thing he still had some monster candy sticking to the pockets of his jeans, or he might have been tired out at this point. Papyrus continued dabbing things behind his ears until he realized that he didn't have ears, and then he started getting angry at some pun Sans had said who knows when. Danny was distracted by the skeleton's irritation just long enough to get slammed in the back of the head with a flying bone attack. He found himself face down in the snow for what seemed like the millionth time that day.

Danny peeled his face off of the snowy ground and looked back at Papyrus, who seemed to be feeling good about himself because of this. Danny rolled his eyes. Yes, it was _so_ hard to make him faceplant into the ground these days. He stood up and started to think of a different strategy to end the battle. Well, he'd tried using ghost powers, talking, _flirting,_ and dodging, but he hadn't tried one thing yet…  
Danny tried sparing.  
Papyrus seemed a bit unsure.  
"AFTER A DEFEAT YOU, I WILL FINALLY BE ACCEPTED INTO THE ROYAL GUARD!"  
Danny spared.  
"I WILL HAVE GLORY, A TITLE, VERY HEAVY ARMOR, AND FRIENDS!"  
He tried sparing again.  
"BUT… WILL I EVER FIND SOMEONE LIKE YOU AGAIN?"  
… spare.  
"FRIENDS LIKE YOU ARE HARD TO COME BY! AND IF I CAPTURE YOU… WILL I EVER FIND ANOTHER HUMAN WITH WEIRD HUMAN POWERS TO SPEND TIME WITH?"  
Danny winked, then he spared again.  
"NO… NO! I CAN'T DO THIS! HUMAN, YOU HAVE INSPIRED ME TO GIVE YOU MERCY!"  
Papyrus stopped attacking, _finally._ Danny sighed in relief and spared the skeleton, successfully ending the battle. Papyrus immediately seemed upset.  
"NYOO HOO HOO… I CAN'T EVEN DEFEAT SOMEONE AS… STRANGE AS YOU…"  
Danny frowned at this. Rude.  
"I DIDN'T CAPTURE YOU, SO NOW I'LL NEVER BE LET INTO THE ROYAL GUARD! I'LL REMAIN FRIENDLESS WITH ONLY MY WEIRD BROTHER TO KEEP ME COMPANY!"  
Danny looked down and sighed. Well, he'd made friends with two different giant ghost dogs and a large group of yetis before, why not add a couple of wacky skeletons to the growing list?  
"Uh, I'll be your friend?"

Papyrus whipped around to look at him with a large grin on his face. "REALLY? WOWIE! I HAVE FRIENDS! AND WHO KNEW ALL I HAD TO DO TO MAKE THEM… WAS TO GIVE THEM AWFUL PUZZLES AND THEN FIGHT THEM? WELL, HUMAN! YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY PROVEN TO ME THAT STRANGE SUPER POWERED HUMANS CAN MAKE GOOD FRIENDS! MAYBE THAT MEANS I SHOULD GIVE DR. ALPHYS' ANIMES ANOTHER SHOT… WELL, ANYWAY, COME BY MY HOUSE ANY TIME FOR THAT DATE! BYE!"  
And with that, the skeleton… slid- no flew- no? He… left in a really… indescribable fashion. It was best not to dwell on it for too long. Danny watched him go with a slightly horrified expression. What had he gotten himself into? This… this was not good. This did not bode well for him.

Danny looked forward to Waterfall. It sounded like a straight-forward place. Maybe over there, things would start to make sense.  
Yes, he would go through Waterfall, and maybe, _maybe,_ he would think about going to see Papyrus again.  
Danny groaned. Why does this always have to happen to him?

 **Danny r u bi.  
ANYWAY, whoopsie. Man I'm bad at this. I think I said I would try to change things up this chapter, but I got mugged of all my ideas by a bit of writer's block and had to recover with my good pal Procrastination by my side. Also I discovered that it is nearly completely impossible for me to write anything serious for even half of a second. I think things are going to start going off of the rails once Undyne catches wind of Danny. Papyrus isn't good at keeping "human powers" quiet. SO AYYYYYYY don't leave me pls. I have a computer now, I will write more.  
And yes I know the dialogue is weird. I try. Ugh this is almost not acceptable in how short it is. Sorry for that, I'll try to update sooner.  
Flames will be Grillby. They will literally be Grillby.  
I think I fixed the repeating part from earlier. Sorry about that!  
Me: *reads through to find mistake*  
Me: *laughs at my own jokes*  
**


	5. Too Hot to Handle

**Hi I'm going to draw myself some fanart of my own story because I like the picture of an awkward Danny with a red bow and a pink yellow-striped sweater (I mean a yellow pink striped sweater? Idk lmao) fighting an angry fish woman or going on a date with a skeleton. NOBODY CAN STOP ME.**

Upon entering Waterfall, Danny noticed one thing.  
There was a lot of water.  
Not just water in its liquid form, but water in the air, in the plants, and in the overall atmosphere in the place. It felt like walking through a gentle mist when he first arrived, and the place was comfortably cool. Needless to say, so far, it was Danny's favorite place in the Underground. He walked through the opening hallway, marveling at how the water seemed to reflect everything, all of the different shades of blue around him. He looked into a puddle, and… wow. He looked terrible. Danny grimaced and touched his hair. It was all over the place! His hair hadn't looked like that since that one time everyone thought he was going insane. Danny combed his hand through his hair (being careful to not dislodge the ribbon), and kneeled down, using some of the puddle water to clean the soot off of his face. The water seemed clean enough, anyway.

Danny finished cleaning his face and looked back down at his reflection. Well, it wasn't as bad as before? He sighed and continued walking, coming into an actually inhabited area. The area held that one monster kid he had seen in Snowdin town, some random fishy guy standing next to a glowing blue flower, and… Sans, sitting at a sentry station.  
So _that's_ where he had been. Danny decided to walk up to the flower guy first, and he got an explanation of what the thing was for. Apparently, it was an echo flower, and echo flowers would always repeat the last thing they heard. Danny decided to try it. He leaned over to the echo flower and quietly whispered into it, and then listened.  
He smirked evilly when he heard it back. The flower guy was looking at him strangely. Danny continued to the monster kid, still smirking.  
"Hey, are you here to try to see Undyne too?! Well I'm ready when you are!" Danny stopped for a second, then shrugged. Might as well just let the kid follow him around. Besides, who _doesn't_ love tiny dinosaur children? Danny certainly did. He decided to finally go talk to Sans, who had been looking at him with one brow raised the entire time he'd been slouching around.

"hey kid," he said. "what, never seen a guy with more than one job? it means more legally required breaks. hey, speaking of breaks, my mine is coming up, so wanna go to Grillbys?"

Danny's eyes widened. Oh no, no no no. "That isn't meant to be like a… date, right?"  
Sans' grin widened and he winked. "nah, just a meeting between friends."  
Danny sighed in relief. "Thank Clockwork…"

Sans got up and walked away from his sentry station, gesturing for Danny to follow him. "c'mon," he said. "i know a shortcut."  
Danny followed him, and in the blink of an eye, they were entering the Snowdin bar. He looked around, incredulous. How…? Sans grinned at him. "fast shortcut, right?"  
He then proceeded to greet everyone in the bar like old friends. Apparently Sans was a regular in the bar. Danny frowned. Did he eat? Did he drink? He was a skeleton? DId he just… drink something and then have it spill through his ribcage? Where did it go? It must be magic. Danny nodded. Yeah, that's the only explanation. There… there just can't be any other explanation...  
Sans waved Danny over to the front of the bar, and he decided that he might as well just get this over with. He sat down on a bar stool next to Sans, and the sound of a whoopee cushion immediately sounded. Danny slowly turned his head to face Sans, squinting at him disapprovingly. Sans smiled back. "whoa, better watch out. sometimes weirdos put whoopee cushions on the seats. so, what are ya gonna have?" Sans gestured to a very very small menu in an undisclosed location. The menu said "burg, fries, drink." Well, at least it got to the point.  
Danny decided to get a burger because who get's _fries_ instead of a burger. Honestly, super lame.

Sans seemed to know what he wanted, as he asked the bartender (who was literally _fire_ wearing a tuxedo and glasses?!) to get them both some "burg." Danny watched the fire guy, who was apparently the owner (Grillby), go and get the food. He was going to have to talk to that guy later, even if he _was_ made of fire.

"so," Sans said. "what d'ya think of my brother? is he cool?" Danny looked up for a second while he contemplated. Well, the guy definitely tried really hard, which was more than he could say sometimes, and he seemed to really love himself and work hard to achieve his goals… and he was a skeleton, but wasn't a ghost, so he wasn't even dead... Plus Sans seemed to expect one kind of answer, so...

Danny sighed. "He's the coolest guy I've ever met."  
Sans seemed to approve. "yeah, that's true. but who wouldn't be cool while wearing that outfit all the time? he and i made it for a costume party awhile back, and he hasn't taken it off since then. says it's his 'battle body.' but it's okay, he washes it. and by that I mean he wears it in the shower."  
Sans grinned at Grillby, who was showing up with two burgers and some ketchup. "thanks Grillbz."

Danny looked down at his burger. Wow, it was just a greasy as the burgers back home. That was pretty impressive. Danny grimaced, trying to not think about home lest he start freaking out. Sans offered him some ketchup, and Danny couldn't help but to decline. The burger already had enough to it without adding something else. Sans shrugged and started to… drink the ketchup. Very casually, and nobody seemed to think this was weird. Danny shuddered. He wouldn't be able to eat ketchup after this.

Without even giving him a chance to bite into his burger, Sans interrupted him.  
"so, i've got a bit of a question for you. have you ever seen anything… strange? something like… a talking flower?"

Danny was glad he hadn't been eating anything, because he would've choked. " _Yes_ ," he blurted, loudly.

"ah, so you know about echo flowers. yeah, those th-"

"What? No!" Danny scooted around to face Sans and started gesturing to make his point. "There's this little freaky flower dude who tried to assault me with his tiny bullet things like, a thousand rooms ago! I mean he wasn't really little he was like three feet tall, and his bullet things were more like seeds… hey if you planted one of those seeds would it grow into another flower? Like, a sentient flower? But grey? I don't know…"

Sans was staring at Danny with absolutely nothing to say in return. He just slowly began drinking from the ketchup bottle again, taking his time to drain it, then slamming it onto the counter.  
"so anyway, i heard you were going to go on a date with my brother."

Danny stopped his rant to start spluttering and blushing in protest. Sans just grinned and got up from his bar stool.

"have fun," he said, and winked. Then left, telling Grillby to put the food on his tab. Danny glared after him. Stupid skeletons, ruining his vibe.  
Well, better not let the food go to waste…

Danny ate the burger inhumanly quickly. It was a very good burger. He noticed the fire guy washing glasses behind the counter and decided he might as well talk to him now. So he scooted his seat over to him and thought up of ways to start a conversation with a fire.  
"Uh, so... " he shifted in his seat. "Are you, like, solid? I mean, how can you wear material clothing if you're just… fire?"  
Great way to start, Danny.  
Grillby took a bit to reply, and he said that he could probably work without clothes on, but that would probably make a few certain people uncomfortable.  
"O-oh right, yeah." Danny frowned. How could he understand what Grillby had said? Eh, whatever. Danny wiped sweat off of his forehead. Man, it was getting pretty warm in there.  
"Man, you're pretty hot aren't you… WAIT."  
Danny's eyes widened in horror. _Why does this keep happening to him.  
_ "Aw no no that's not what I mean oh my god I've got to go BYE."  
He got up and speed walked out of the bar with a great deal of panic in his eyes. Grillby continued cleaning his glass with his own approximation of a smile.

Danny trudged through the snow with his head in his hands, heading towards the path that would bring him back to Waterfall. He couldn't believe that had just happened. Why did he keep accidentally flirting with people? It must have been this place… the Underground obviously had something about it that made flirting happen. That was literally the only possible explanation.  
As he was walking, Danny bumped into something. He lifted his head from his hands and looked up right into Papyrus' face. "Ohh…"  
"HUMAN! YOU'VE ARRIVED FOR OUR DATE!"  
" ahh… of course…"  
"YES! THAT! YOU TOOK LONGER THAN I THOUGHT TO GET HERE, BUT NEVER MIND THAT! I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE WE'RE GOING TO GO FOR THE DATE! IT'S SOMEWHERE I SPEND ALOT OF TIME!"  
Papyrus strode right past Danny, away from his house and towards the center of town. Danny decided to just follow him, as he thought he might as well get this all over with as soon as possible. Papyrus walked purposefully towards Grillby's, then immediately spun around and started walking back in the opposite direction. Danny stopped in his tracks. Lifting an eyebrow, he followed him back. They both stopped directly in front of Papyrus' front door.  
"MY HOUSE!" the skeleton then ran inside. Danny's mouth twitched upwards in a confused smile. "Oookay…" he went inside. Immediately upon entering the house, Danny noted Sans' theme played from an undisclosed location. Danny was starting to notice that the smaller skeleton's theme seemed to play in places he would spend a lot of time. Apparently it just… rubbed off on the place? Eh… he didn't understand all this magic stuff yet.

Danny looked around, appraising the place. The first thing he noticed was a rock with sprinkles… _sprinkled_ onto it. Papyrus decided to narrate this action.  
"OH, THAT'S OUR PET ROCK. SANS IS ALWAYS TOO LAZY TO FEED IT, SO I HAVE TO TAKE ON THE RESPONSIBILITY!"  
Danny squinted at the rock. He didn't think it _looked_ like a magic rock, but you could never be sure down there. He decided to take that in stride. Next, he spotted the kitchen and decided that any kitchen was a room worthy to visit, so he walked inside, and Papyrus sprinted over to stand outside and not lose sight of him. He wanted to be a good host, after all. Danny briefly glanced at the trash can, and Papyrus thought that was worth commenting on.  
"OH, THAT'S THE TRASH CAN. FEEL FREE TO VISIT IT ANY TIME."  
Danny paused in his exploration of the kitchen. "Uh, thanks." he then spotted the ridiculously tall sink in the corner, too tall for anybody to possibly wash their hands. "Uh…"  
"THAT'S THE SINK! I MADE IT TALLER SO IT CAN STORE MORE BONES! ISN'T THAT NEAT? GO AHEAD! OPEN IT!"  
Danny opened the cabinet under the sink, and in it was a little white dog chewing on a rather large bone.  
"HEY! MY SPECIAL ATTACK!" Papyrus seemed mad. The dog's eyes widened and it ran out from the cabinet, heading towards the door. "QUICK! CATCH IT!" Danny sprang to action and jumped after the dog. He grabbed its back legs, but the dog was too strong! It kicked out of his grip and barreled its way outside, large bone still in its mouth.  
AGH! THAT MEDDLING CANINE!"  
Suddenly, Sans appeared from one of the two rooms on the second floor (the one with mysterious flashing neon colors coming from it), took out a trombone, and played a sad sound with it. This only seemed to enrage Papyrus further. "SANS! STOP PLAGUING MY LIFE WITH INCIDENTAL MUSIC!"  
Danny couldn't help it, he giggled. This house was like pure comedy gold. Papyrus didn't seem to hear him over his dog incited rage, and he went back to standing and waiting for Danny to look at something else. Danny decided to oblige.  
Walking over to the other side of the room, he noticed a random joke book on a table next to their couch. Well, might as well see how Sans gets his jokes. He opened the book, and inside was… a quantum physics book.  
… what?  
He opened the quantum physics book, and inside was another joke book. Inside the joke book was _another_ quantum physics book. Now, any other regular person would decide to not go any farther, and just let this be. But Danny was not a regular person. He kept on opening the books, watching them go smaller and smaller, until the writing on each book was no longer even legible. He opened the very last book, and inside…  
Oh…  
Oh no.  
Danny closed the book and walked away. No need for any more details on that.  
Danny noticed in the corner was a single sock, covered in sticky notes with an argument between both Papyrus and Sans, Papyrus wanting Sans to return the sock to his room, and Sans making excuses to not do that. Danny shook his head. He decided he had seen enough.  
"DO YOU WANT TO START OUR DATE NOW? WE CAN GO INTO MY ROOM AND DO WHATEVER IT IS PEOPLE DO ON DATES!"  
Danny saw no problem with that. He sighed and nodded. "Okay, woo." They both headed up into Papyrus' room, and Danny was immediately wowed with it. There was a computer, action figures, a pirate flag, books, even a race car bed. Not as good as a space ship bed but it was pretty close.  
"This is a pretty cool room."  
"YES! MY ROOM IS JUST AS COOL AS ME! SO, ARE YOU READY TO START THE DATE?"  
Danny sighed for about the 300th time in that hour. "Yeah okay fine."  
Danny felt that he did not get payed enough for any of this. Even though there was gold, like, everywhere.

"GREAT! DATING, START!"  
Color drained from their surroundings and it looked as though they were entering a fight, but much more peppy music played and nobody was throwing things at him, so it was fine.  
"ALRIGHT! SO, HERE WE ARE, ON OUR DATE. I'VE NEVER ACTUALLY DONE THIS BEFORE, BUT IT'S OKAY! YOU CAN'T SPELL PREPARED WITHOUT SEVERAL LETTERS FROM MY NAME!" Papyrus whipped a book out from somewhere behind him. "I SNAGGED A DATING MANUAL FROM THE LIBRARY, IT SHOULD TELL US ALL WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DATING! LET'S SEE… STEP ONE… PRESS C ON YOUR KEYBOARD FOR DATING HUB..."  
Danny blinked.  
… what? What keyboard? What was he supposed to do? This wasn't a videogame, he didn't have the necessary materials for any of this! What… what if he just said it out loud?  
"Um…. C?"  
Suddenly, a ton of weird important looking bars and gauges and radars appeared all around him. These including a tension meter, a dog radar, the date and a moon? A thing that just said 'reel it in!,' a population graph, a crime radar? and an… egg? Danny snickered. He really couldn't handle this.  
"WOWIE! I FEEL SO INFORMED! I THINK WE'RE READY FOR STEP TWO! STEP TWO… ASK THEM ON A DATE! AHEM! HUMAN! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL GO ON A DATE WITH YOU!"

Danny shrugged. "Yeah, okay… here we are."

YES! HERE IS WHERE WE ARE! GREAT! NOW ONTO STEP THREE! STEP THREE… PUT ON NICE CLOTHES TO SHOW THAT YOU CARE…"

Papyrus stopped, as if contemplating something. Suddenly, the music grew more serious, tension meter rising.  
"WAIT A SECOND… 'WEAR CLOTHING…' THAT RIBBON IN YOUR HAIR, THE SWEATER, THAT CONFUSED EXPRESSION… YOU'VE BEEN WEARING THINGS RIGHT NOW! NOT JUST THAT… EARLIER TODAY, YOU WERE ALSO WEARING CLOTHING! COULD IT BE? YOU'VE PLANNED THIS FROM THE BEGINNING!"

What? How should he respond to this? He _was_ wearing clothes, so should that be a yes? Oh whatever. As long as everyone's happy.  
"Yes…?"

Papyrus reeled back in shock.  
"NO… THIS CAN'T BE… WAS YOUR INTEREST IN ME, PREDESTINED?! OH NO! YOUR DATING POWER!"

Danny's dating power meter gained more color. He guessed that meant he was winning? The music started up again, even faster this time.

"DON'T YOU THINK YOU'VE BEAT ME SO EASILY! I'VE NEVER BEEN BEATEN AT DATING BEFORE, AND I NEVER WILL! I CAN EASILY KEEP UP WITH YOU! YOU SEE, I, TOO, CAN WEAR CLOTHING… IN FACT, I ALWAYS WEAR MY 'SPECIAL' CLOTHES UNDERNEATH MY REGULAR CLOTHES! JUST IN CASE SOMEONE HAPPENS TO ASK ME ON A DATE! BEHOLD!"

Papyrus went into his closet for half a second and jumped out iin a completely different outfit. This one had a backward turned hat, shorts, basketballs for sleeves, and a shirt that said 'cool dude.' Danny raised his eyebrows. That looked like something Tucker would wear.

"NYEH! WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MY SECRET STYLE?!"

Danny put his hand on his chin. "Well it's… definitely something."

Papyrus gasped. "A GENUINE COMPLIMENT!"  
Danny's dating power increased, but… the music went all tensiony again.

"BUT… HOWEVER, YOU DON'T KNOW MY OUTFIT'S HIDDEN POWER! THEREFORE, YOUR PREVIOUS STATEMENT IS INVALID!"  
The dating power decreased again! Uh oh, tension was getting higher, and Danny was getting even more confused than before. He was also pretty amused, as this was kind of ridiculous.  
"THIS DATE CANNOT ESCALATE ANY FURTHER, NOT UNTIL YOU FIND MY SECRET!"

"Uh…" Danny found that he could move his soul around for this, so he decided to use that. The yellow heart moved towards the skeleton, and collided with the basketball used as a sleeve.

"AH, YES… I SEE YOU ENJOY CARRESSING MY BICEPS WITH A FLOATING HEART… BUT WHO DOESN'T?!"

Okay that was a mistake. Danny started to panic and moved the soul onto pretty much every article of clothing rapidly, desperate to get this over with. He finally landed on the backwards cap.

"MY HAT…" MY HAT. MY HAT! NYEHEHEHEHEH!"

The hat just _floated up_ to reveal a wrapped gift under it. Danny didn't pay much attention to the gift, as he was focused on the levitating cap.  
… why…? How.

"W-WELL THEN! I GUESS I HAVE NO CHOICE! IT'S A PRESENT! A PRESENT J-JUST FOR YOU!"

"Thanks…?" Danny walked over and grabbed the gift, opening it to find… spaghetti.  
Sure, why not.

"NYEH! YES! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS?!"

Danny looked down at the noodles, then back up at Papyrus.  
"It's spaghetti," he said.

"THAT'S RIGHT! BUT THIS AIN'T ANY PLAIN OLE PASTA! THIS IS AN ARTISAN'S WORK! SILKEN SPAGHETTI… AGED IN AN OAKEN CASK… THEN COOKED BY ME! MASTER CHEF PAPYRUS! HUMAN! IT'S TIME TO END THIS! THERE'S NO WAY THIS CAN GO ANY FURTHER!"

Danny looked down at the spaghetti. Well, it looked innocent enough. Plus, didn't Sans say that his cooking was starting to become edible? It couldn't be that bad…  
He tried one noodle.  
It was that bad.

"WHAT A PASSIONATE EXPRESSION… YOU TRULY ENJOY IT, DON'T YOU?!"  
Papyrus acted as though he was hit every time the dating power rose slightly. He made dramatic noises, and the dating power broke right out of it's bar! It was off the charts!

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The music stopped, everything stopped.

"HUMAN. IT'S CLEAR NOW. YOU'RE MADLY IN LOVE WITH ME. EVERYTHING YOU DO. EVERYTHING YOU SAY. IT'S ALL BEEN FOR MY SAKE. HUMAN, I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY, TOO. IT'S TIME FOR ME TO EXPRESS MY FEELINGS. IT'S TIME THAT I TOLD YOU… I, PAPYRUS…

I… UM...  
BOY, IS IT HOT IN HERE, OR IS IT JUST ME?

OH, SHOOT. HUMAN, I… I'M SORRY. I DON'T LIKE YOU THE WAY YOU LIKE ME. ROMANTICALLY, I MEAN."

Danny let out a breath. Oh thank GOD IN HEAVEN. He acted devastated on the outside though. Papyrus continued on.

"I MEAN, I TRIED VERY HARD TO! I THOUGHT THAT BECAUSE YOU FLIRTED WITH ME, THAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO GO ON A DATE WITH YOU. THEN, ON THE DATE, FEELINGS WOULD BLOSSOM FORTH! I WOULD BE ABLE TO MATCH YOUR PASSION FOR ME! BUT ALAS, I THE GREAT PAPYRUS, HAVE FAILED. I FEEL JUST THE SAME AS BEFORE. AND, INSTEAD, BY DATING YOU… I HAVE ONLY DRAWN YOU DEEPER… INTO YOUR INTENSE LOVE FOR ME!"

Danny felt like looking into a camera like he was in the Office.

"A DARK PRISON OF PASSION, WITH NO ESCAPE. HOW COULD I HAVE DONE THIS TO MY DEAR FRIEND…?

NO! WAIT! THAT'S WRONG! I CAN'T FAIL AT ANYTHING! HUMAN! I'LL HELP YOU THROUGH THESE TRYING TIMES! I'LL KEEP BEING YOUR COOL FRIEND… AND ACT LIKE THIS ALL NEVER HAPPENED. AFTER ALL, YOU ARE VERY GREAT."

"Aww…" how touching. This was actually inspiring. And… weird.

"IT WOULD BE TRAGIC TO LOSE YOUR FRIENDSHIP. SO PLEASE… DON'T CRY BECAUSE I WON'T KISS YOU. BECAUSE, I DON'T EVEN HAVE LIPS. AND HEY, SOMEDAY, YOU'LL FIND SOMEONE AS GREAT AS ME! WELL, NO. THAT'S NOT TRUE. BUT I'LL HELP YOU SETTLE FOR SECOND BEST! NYEHEHEHEHEH!"

Papyrus left, but then came straight back.

"OH, AND IF YOU EVER NEED TO REACH ME, HERE'S MY PHONE NUMBER. YOU CAN CALL ME ANY TIME! PLATONICALLY. WELL! GOTTA GO! NYEH HEH HEH!"  
The skeleton then left for real.

Danny sighed in relief. That was emotionally exhausting. Finally, _finally,_ he could go and relax in Waterfall.  
With less of a mental burden than before, Danny headed back to Waterfall, passing Sans' sentry station and heading into a room with a waterfall. Huh, fitting. Taking his shoes and socks off so they don't get wet, Danny walked into the water, dodging boulders as he went, which really wasn't actually that hard for him. Unfortunately, Danny looked down below the waterfall, and there was an echo flower there he kinda wanted to listen to. Eh, a little ghosting couldn't hurt, right? Danny looked around, then muttered "I'm going ghost!" before he transformed into his ghost form and, leaving his shoes and socks by the water, floated down to check the flower. Whoever had spoken into it said that there was something behind the waterfall, so, Danny checked. Behind the water was a small room with nothing but a few plants, glowing rocks, (which looked super cool, Danny wondered if there was more of them) and an old tutu. Heh, what would he ever need with an old tutu?

…  
He took the tutu. A little extra armor never hurt, right?  
Danny swore this place was corrupting his mind.  
He continued onwards, transforming back into a human and stopping to pick up his shoes and…  
Where were his socks?  
Where were they?  
"What the…" Danny looked around, but didn't see them anywhere. Did someone take his socks? Why?  
Danny thought back to the sock in Sans and Papyrus' house. It could not only be a coincidence.  
"Did that skeleton steal my socks?! Is he collecting socks?! UGH!" Danny sighed and picked up his shoes, muttering about dastardly spooky bone monsters and how they should leave people's clothing alone.  
Danny entered the next hallway, and immediately noticed that something was off about the place. Maybe if was because the lighting was at a creepy angle. That never meant good things for him... He headed into the tall grass that was blocking his path, but stopped when he started hearing voices. It sounded like… Papyrus? Danny looked up, and he could just make out the figure of Papyrus and a shadowy armored monster standing on a small cliff face. Papyrus was talking to the monster, who was apparently the 'Undyne' Danny had been hearing about (and who was apparently Papyrus and Sans' boss?) The skeleton was trying to make excuses to _not_ kill Danny, but apparently was not winning the argument. He ended up agreeing with Undyne, and he pledged to help her in any way he could. Then, he left, and Undyne was left standing in the shadows.  
Danny decided to try to sneak out of there as quietly as possible, but, forgetting that he could turn invisible and intangible like, _whenever,_ he shifted in the grass and made a shuffling noise that was loud enough to gain Undyne's attention. Incredibly ominous music started playing as the armored figure spun around with a glowing blue spear in hand, ready to throw it into the tall grass at any moment. Suddenly, a voice whispered in Danny's ear.

" _don't move…"_ it said. _don't give yourself away."_ Danny decided the right course of action and immediately went stiff, being careful to not move anything around him in order to not provoke the action of scary armored mysterious monster. Eventually, Undyne vanished the spear and slowly walked away, leaving the room in silence.

Danny walked away from the grass, not even getting to let the tension out of his body before Monster Kid barrelled their way out of the grass after him, pretty much vibrating in excitement. "Yo… did you see the way she was staring at you? That… was AWESOME! I'm soooo jealous! What'd you do to get her attention? Ha ha. C'mon! Let's go watch her beat up some bad guys!" And with that, the kid ran up ahead, fell onto their face, and then got right back up and started running again.  
Danny was still reeling at what had just happened. Man, he'd faced creepy enemies before, but Undyne just had this… aura about her. It was creepy.  
He probably would have been a spear shish kabob if it wasn't for…  
… who was that…?

It couldn't have been monster kid, it sounded… different. Older, maybe. A bit mistier?  
Then, who could it be…?

Danny looked around, then, experimentally, called out a bit.  
"Is anyone there? I know there's someone there, you helped me…"  
It took a few seconds, and then…  
"Are you talking about me?"

Danny whipped around to the source of the voice. Behind him was the faint outline of a child. They were wearing a green sweater with a yellow stripe, brown pants and boots. They had auburn/brown hair and brown eyes, and rather rosy cheeks. They were obviously a ghost, but they felt… different. They spoke hesitantly.  
"Can you see me?"

Danny started. "Um, yeah? Um, you're a ghost, right?"  
The child looked down a little, then back up.  
"Yes, I suppose I am."

Danny nodded. This ghost seemed friendly enough. And they had helped him, so… "Well, hi, I'm Danny."

They smiled at him. "Greetings, I am Chara."

 **Sans don't like it when his creepy monologue is interrupted. Gee, this took a long time to write. Lotta pages, this one. Well, I wanted to finish it to tell you guys that I have a tumblr now! My url is do-you-emeraldsea-whatididthere, and I guess you'll just have to search that up cuz Fanfiction doesn't work with links. Go send me some asks about the story or something, or just ask in general. Even post things like fanart (wink wink nudge nudge) If enough people actually show up I might update here with a crack chapter I wrote based on this chapter like, tomorrow. I like writing those, it's fun. All it really is is just me goofing off and It's only a few hundred words long but it might be fun to read. You don't have to do any of this, I just like getting visited by people. I have like, four followers and I know two of them personally, so. Yeah. Dang I hope nothing gets messed up in the posting of this chapter, but if it does, just tell me and I'll fix it right on up.  
Flames will be used to probably be thrown at Danny in chapters to come, and that's very dangerous and irresponsible so let's do it.**


	6. chapter five, the lost episode

**you don't actually have to read this, it's a crack chapter. Posted this cuz it's fun**

HHHHHOOoo DAMN there was water eeeeevERhywhere. Danny tromped his way through a puddle, puddling it all over the place. "Wow GEEEEEEEEEE that's very wet he said" he said. Let's get this show on the reeoad. He ran into the next room and up and bodyslammed Monster Kid into a river. "That's what you get for not having ARMS," he screeched. Then he turned to the sad ectoflower that's right I said ectoflower loving man and kicked him RIGHT into dust. Sans sat through all of this, staring straight forward with his permanent grin still stuck on his face, and now also dustLMao.

"yo kid wanna go to Grillbys and eat burgers and quietly want to die."

Danny whipped around at a speed previously unknown to man and also ghost and leapt onto Sans' sentry station. "HELL YES I DO INDEED." He whispered.

And so they zipped right on outta there and right on into Grillbys at the speed of teleportation because they teleported. Upon entering the bar, Danny screamed as loud as he could.  
"I'M MEEELTING" garbled him. And he was, because it was hot. But he also wasn't, because there's still plot left.  
So Sans and Danny sat at the bar and Sans immediately turned his head without moving his body like a freaky skeleton owl or something. "lol i know you're a ghost," he said, with a straight face but also not straight because he smiles all the time. That's got to be tiring for facial muscles. Well I guess not because he's a skeleton and he doesn't have muscles. So he just moves his arms with magic and stuff. Like he's literally a magical skeleton and without magic he wouldn't be able to move and stuff? That's a distressing thought. Anyway  
"OMG U KNO I'M A GHOST HOW?!" talked Danny.  
"because we have ghost monsters down here and it was kinda like super obvious because i watched your fight with my bro and you were like invisible and junk," sayeth-ed thine skeleton.  
Danny floated into the air in shock! And also turned into his ghost form in shock! Sock! I mean Shock is what I meant!  
Every monster in the bar gasped also because ghost!  
Wait actually they didn't because they didn't really know he was human so he was kinda just a monster to them and they all looked a little irritated but that's about it. Sans was not surprised because he already knew this because he was Sans. But through Danny vision, everything was much more dire than it actually was! So fixed everything by shooting Fire Man Grillby™ in the back of the head with an echoblast, causing him to faceplant into the bar and set everything on fire because the bar happened to be made out of wood.

Danny stood in front of the bar, watching it burn. He then spun around and skipped in the direction of Sans and Papyrus' house. "Well! Time to go date a skeleton!"

Then he was shot the end.

 **Nobody asked for this. Here it is though.  
The next chapter is actually coming though I just wrote this because I enjoy not being serious**


	7. Waterfall, a Place Full of Water

**I actually can't believe that I ended up getting fanart it's so beautiful oh my god. Shoutout to theartisticintrovert and lunagalemaster on tumblr for making the art! They're both so beautiful and they made me happy with art! Yay! I don't really know your fanfiction usernames so you can go ahead and tell me if you want, heh. This chapter is for you guys! And also for everyone else lol  
I'm pretty much looking at other Danny Phantom and Undertale crossover things and being all "ayyyy you're better than me" it's real fun. No but guys like, follow my tumblr and witness all of my shenanigans for yourself so you can measure my sanity.**

 **Note: Danny is really bad at turning intangible when he should turn intangible.  
Another note: it always takes me awhile to get chapters out to you guys so this entire black section is written and added to within the course of a few weeks. Would be cool if it wasn't annoying that I always take so long.  
K so I have realized that Danny is very tsundere. By the way, I'm not entirely sure what gender Monster Kid is? I think they're a dude but I'll just go with they just in case. This is probably going to turn out to be a continuity error, isn't it?  
Man this chapter was difficult to write. Guys… Waterfall is just so big… guys… help me…  
I. Found. My fics. On a recommended fics thing.  
That's just  
Really super great imma cry**

 ****

"So, you don't look much like the other ghost I've seen down here."

The child, newly deemed Chara, nodded in acknowledgment. "Yes, unlike the ghost you've seen before, I am not a monster. I was once a human, and I died." They gained a thoughtful expression and looked at Danny quizzically. "You know, I find it strange that you can actually see me… that doesn't make much sense. Though, you don't appear to be very human, so-"

"What are you _talking about?!"_ Danny half-yelled, immediately freaking out. "I'm completely human! Why would you even think I _wasn't_ that's _ridiculous_."

Chara stared at him for a second. "I've been watching you this entire time."

Oh. Well, Danny wasn't really expecting that. "Oh…" he said. "Uh… that's kind of creepy, but okay."

Chara scrunched up their nose at him. They seemed to think that was pretty rude. "Rude," they said. Danny sighed.

"So then… you saw me go ghost?"

Chara seemed to consider that. "Is that what you call it? That's… interesting. Yes, I saw you do that transforming thing. I don't know exactly _how_ you did that, but… yes. You're not actually human, are you?"

Danny sputtered, kind of insulted. "Of course I am! I'm _half_ ghost, I'm still a human! It's not like I'm… dead or anything… um, whoops?"

Chara looked at him with a deadpan expression. "Yeah, sure." they rolled their eyes. "Now, as an explanation for why I'm here… I think you may need my help- ubupbup!" They held up a finger, interrupting what Danny was about to say. " _Yes,_ you _do_ need my help. If it wasn't for me, you'd have a spear through your chest right now. If you don't want to be _fully_ dead, I suggest you let me help you."

Danny scoffed, offended at being interrupted. "Wait, why would you even want to help me in the first place? What do you have to gain?"

Chara shifted uncomfortably. "Well, what do I have to lose? I just woke up like this not that long ago, and I'm a ghost, pretty much. It's not like I have a ton of options!" They cleared their throat, regaining composure. "Besides, you _obviously_ need someone watching you. I mean, I'm not the one who went out of his way to grab an old tutu he found in a dark cave."

Danny not-so-subtly tucked a pink something back into his pants pocket, muttering something about armor and protective coverings. He sighed again. "Okay, you've got me. I might need some extra help… if I want to get out of here with all of my internal organs intact."

Chara nodded. "Yes, that would be correct. Now," they gestured to the path in front of them. "Shall we get moving?"

Danny grumbled a bit, but started walking forward all the same. The Monster Kid was probably wondering why he was walking so slow. Danny continued moving, now with his ghostly companion at his side, and he found himself having difficulty focusing on his deep blue surroundings, or the light drip of water coming from an indiscernible direction, or the distant sound of a flowing waterfall. The reason for his distractions were rather obvious to him. He had the ghost of a child walking next to him, a Monster Kid somewhere in front of him, waiting for him to catch up, and the looming threat of a terrifying spear wielding monster woman looming over his head. It didn't seem like this was a good time to be sightseeing, no matter how nice a place Waterfall was.

"Hey, see those flowers?"

Danny looked up, cut off from his inner rambling, and looked at the four large flowers Chara was gesturing to. "...Yeah? What about 'em?"

"If you push all of them in order across that bit of water," they pointed at the weird pond in front of them that Danny had not noticed and probably would have walked right into were they not there. "Then they'll bloom and you'll be able to walk across them."

Danny squinted at them. He was pretty sure that flowers are not strong enough to hold his weight, but he decided if this didn't work, he could just float across anyway, so why not? He grabbed each of the flowers and pushed them across the water until the made a straight line across, and like Chara said they would, they bloomed. He looked at the ghost child standing beside him, and they gestured for him to keep moving. Danny sighed and gingerly placed a foot on one of the flowers, pressing down with force.  
The flower… didn't move. Danny's eyebrows rose. Ooookay… he stepped onto a flower, and kept on moving across them when they supported his weight. He made it across with no difficulties. Chara stepped across as well, probably fully aware that they could just float across whenever. Danny rolled his eyes, but was also aware that he could've done the exact same. They kept moving, entering into another room that had more flowers in it, oh joy. Before he could make it known how overjoyed he was that there were more flowers, a monster that looked like a horse with the body of a lobster flexed his way into a battle with him!

Danny was startled, after the long absence of battles, he honestly had forgotten about the seemingly random encounters. Aaron, who Chara knew the name of for some reason, winked playfully at Danny.  
Danny was decidedly not amused. He decided to check the weird lobster man and find out if he was as strong as he looked. He… wasn't, really. Danny wasn't looking at his muscles or anything though, jeez.

"You can check me out all you want ;)," said Aaron, who incorporated a wink into his speech somehow. Danny cringed a bit, and found himself dodging sweat drops that were apparently attacks and would kill him if too many of them hit him.  
The ghost boy had never been in a more uncomfortable situation.  
Chara was trying to hold in their laughter at his expense, and this served to make him even angrier than he already was.

"You have to flex with him," Chara said, undertones of laughter in their voice.

"What?!" replied Danny, who was quickly running out of patience for the situation he was in. "I'm not going to flex with this guy! Why would I do that? He's gross!"  
Aaron appeared to conveniently not hear anything he was saying, as the monster was too focused on his own reflection in the nearby stream.

"You just have to do it! Trust me!" Chara said, smiling unsympathetically. Danny groaned and wondered why he decided to trust this person. They obviously only wanted to see him suffer. Obviously. That's got to be it.

Danny took a moment to ponder what had become of his life before pulling an incredibly pained expression and holding up his arm in a classic muscle flexing way. He felt like an idiot, and was very sure that he looked like one too. Aaron seemed to take this as a challenge.

"Flexing contest? Alright, try to keep up. ;)"

They then entered what was sure to be the most interesting flexing contest of them all. Danny was not happy. The competition ended when Aaron flexed his bicep so _furiously_ that he flexed himself straight out of the room! Danny won, and decided not to question what had just happened. Chara wasn't even stifling their laughter at this point.  
"You looked so panicked!" they said, once they had calmed down from their laughing fit.

"Oh haha, now can we _move on?_ " Danny hoped desperately that his face wasn't as red as he thought it was. The ghost boy hoped that entire experience would be erased from his memory somehow. Chara sobered up and gestured dramatically for them to move on.

And move on they did. Looking into the room, the two ghostly individuals discovered another flower puzzle, which Danny only needed a _little_ help in figuring out. Unfortunately, while crossing the flowers, Danny slipped on one of the flowers and landed backwards into the stream they were trying to cross. Chara only laughed a _little_ , or at least that is what they would say were they confronted about it. The now soaking wet teen pulled himself out of the water and continued across the stream with his helper, and as soon as he reached the other side, he got a call on his phone. The caller was Papyrus! When asked how he got Danny's number, Papyrus replied that he had dialed every number sequentially until he had gotten the right one, and then, giving Danny no time to think about what a disaster that must've been, he asked what Danny was wearing.

It was then when Danny realized the full gravity of his outfit situation. He had a red bow in his messy hair, a pink and yellow striped sweater, only one shoe, very dirty jeans which may or may not have had a pink tutu shoved in the front pocket, and to top it all off he was soaked through with water because of the river. Danny decided to just ask why Papyrus wanted to know what he had on. Papyrus said he was asking for… a friend?

Oh, Danny knew where this was going. The 'friend' the skeleton was talking about must've been everyone's favorite terrifying armored monster, Undyne. She must've wanted to know his outfit in order to identify him on sight. Danny was no fool, so he interrupted anything the skeleton was going to say next and told Papyrus that he was wearing a full on ballerina outfit, which he definitely wouldn't ever wear and was not going to wear in the near future. Papyrus seemed convinced, and he hung up.  
Danny Fenton, master deciever. Chara rolled their eyes, and Danny took no notice.

They continued on to the next room, which had some echo flowers in it. Danny decided to listen to whatever the flower had to say, as doing that had gotten him _somewhere_ , at least. The flower talked about how long ago, monsters would wish upon stars, and if they wished hard enough, their dreams would come true. But now, all they had were sparkling rocks on the ceiling. Danny was confused, what rocks? On the ceiling? He looked up, and his eyes widened.  
All across the vast black cavern ceiling there were little shining stones that looked almost exactly like stars. Danny would have been fooled had he not just been told they weren't stars, and had he not taught himself all of the constellations beforehand. Danny had always loved the stars, but even though the rocks were beautiful, he knew that they could never substitute for the real thing. This… put a whole new perspective on the whole 'trapped underground' thing for him. Chara decided not to say anything when he went very quiet all of the sudden. They both moved on, listening to echo flowers as they went, and, in Danny's case, learning more things about what happened to the monsters, and also occasionally battling those monsters, which was still kind of annoying (but they came across some echo flowers which held wishes to see the real stars one day, and Danny nearly cried. ouch).

Danny ended up reading about the entire war between humans and monsters on the cave walls, and he found out that it would take every single soul of all the monsters, just to equal the power of one human soul. Danny thought about that. Then… what if the human… was half ghost?  
Well, he supposed he'd have to find out, wouldn't he…? Or not. Danny preferred the later, to be perfectly honest.

After riding on a weird plank thing that took them to another area, Danny and Chara entered a room with strange lighting… lighting that did not seem innocent in any way, shape, or form. Before either of them could speak, incredibly dangerous sounding music started up and a glowing spear was thrown _inches_ in front of Danny, surprising both ghost and half ghost, and as Chara yelled "Run!" they both sprinted across the path they were on to avoid the spears now being thrown all around them with incredible speed by a shadowy figure.

Danny could not hold back a panicked yell as he dodged glowing blue spears that seemed to just come flinging from nowhere and land _everywhere._ At one point, a spear actually grazed his leg, leaving a gash and ripping his jeans. Danny cried out a bit but kept running. He'd been through worse before, after all, but he didn't recall ever being in a situation quite like that one before.

With speed that was _almost_ too fast to be considered natural for a teen, Danny sprinted right into the cover of tall grass positioned directly in his path for some reason. Spears kept on being thrown around him, but Undyne, as that was obviously who the large shadowy figure was, couldn't seem to pinpoint exactly where he was hiding in the grass. Danny almost let out a relieved breath, but then Undyne decided to go looking in the grass for him. She walked a straight line directly towards him, and Chara found themself holding their breath along with Danny, even though nobody could see them. They were just so caught up in the moment.

Undyne stood only a couple feet away from where Danny was crouching. She lifted a hand, threw it down into the grass, and lifted up…

...Monster kid. With absolutely no visible expression, Undyne lowered MK down into the grass, and left with an air of frustration.

As soon as she was gone, Danny heaved out a breath and put his head into his knees. Chara stared where Undyne had disappeared.

"... she's so cool," they whispered. Danny groaned his displeasure at that statement, then stood up, walking out of the grass with a slight limp.

As soon as he had taken a few steps out of the grass, MK came barreling out of it with an incredibly wide eyed expression.

"Did you see that?! Undye just… she just… _touched me!_ " The kid smiled and jumped up and down excitedly. "I'm never washing my face again! Man, you're so unlucky. If you'd been standing just a little bit to the left… hey… are you _bleeding?!_ "

"Uhh…" Danny looked down at his leg, which had a small stream of red blood running down it from the wound right below his knee. "Yeah… I, uh, I tripped?"

Chara frowned. They hadn't noticed the injury before. It didn't look _too_ bad, but it still looked pretty painful. MK seemed shocked.

"Oh _no_! You can, like, walk, right? Or are you bleeding out?! Aww man…"

"No it's not that bad!" Danny stuck his hands out in a placating manner. "I'll just walk it off. Besides, I think I have food in my backpack…"

"Oh!" MK smiled in relief. "You're pretty tough! Just like Undyne! You know, we should go find her! I'll go on ahead and make sure there aren't any rocks for you to trip on…" And with that, MK ran off, tripped onto their face, got up, and ran off again without missing a beat. That seemed to happen a lot with them. Danny let out a breath, and took a look at his injury. There was blood seeping into his sock. Great.  
Well… it looked like the bleeding was just about staunching off, so the ghost boy stood up and decided to just do what he said he was going to do and walk it off. He checked behind him for Chara, and they both started walking forward again.

After walking past a pretty random table with cheese encased in a mystical crystal on it, Danny and Chara entered another room with a view of the hundreds of glowing rocks, and also Sans, because Sans was also in the room for some reason. Walking up to him, Danny listened to Sans' offer of a free view of the stars from his premium telescope. Danny shrugged, not bothering to wonder why Chara was smirking all of the sudden. When looking through the telescope, all he saw was red. Danny quirked an eyebrow at Sans. Sans replied that if Danny wasn't satisfied, he could have a full refund. Chara was laughing at him, obviously because he just looked in a trick telescope, as there could be no other reason why they were laughing at him like that. Danny rolled his eyes and continued on through Waterfall, Sans doing his best approximation of a smirk behind him.

Not far from Sans' area was a small, tear-drop-looking monster that seemed to want to talk to him.

"What is a star?" They asked, "Can you touch it? Can you-"

But the monster did not get to finish, as Danny was already answering the question.  
"Oh! Well, it's a celestial body that generates light and other radiating energy and consists of a mass of gas held together by its own gravity! I can also answer any questions you have about the creation of a star through interstellar gas-"

" _ **Okay thanks,**_ " Said the monster, who didn't ask for this and was only trying to be deep. Danny shrugged and walked away, Chara giving him weird looks as they followed after him. Danny didn't feel ashamed of any of that, as he had spent quite a lot of his time looking up things about space on the internet and now was basically a space fact generator who happens to be half ghost.

Danny and Chara continued on and entered what Danny thought was the most beautiful place in the Underground so far. The place was absolutely full of small rivers, glowing blue plants and echo flowers, and sparkling rocks decorating the ceiling. It was absolutely serene and nice, and Danny entered barely any fights as he was moving around the place. Listening to the echo flowers allowed him to listen to a passing conversation… but the conversation wasn't finished on his end, so he didn't pay it too much thought yet.

While venturing through the area, Danny discovered a random bush just kind of sitting in the middle of a small clearing area. When he looked inside the bush for lack of anything else to do, he found a pair of ballet shoes.  
Ha… what would he need ballet shoes for?

Danny looked at his one bare foot.  
But…  
He took _one_ ballet shoe with him, just in case. He was doing this for _safety._  
 _Safety._

Chara rolled their eyes. Danny backtracked and went along the path again, this time in the right direction, at Chara's prompting. Not long down the road, Danny got a call from Papyrus again. The skeleton wanted to let him know that the person who asked about his clothes had an opinion of him which was very… murdery. Papyrus told Danny that he had let the person know that he was wearing a ballet outfit, because of course, after such a suspicious question, he would've changed his clothes by then. Feeling confident in himself, Papyrus hung up. Danny was satisfied for a moment at his skilled trickery, but then… The ballet shoe. Right.  
Well, as long as he didn't put on that tutu that he definitely didn't have in his pocket, he'd be safe.  
So, no worries! Besides… Undyne had already seen him anyway?  
Oh well. Danny continued along with his ghostly companion to triumph above all puzzles in his path… with some help from said ghostly companion. You could never have too much help…  
" _Oh, wait_ ," Danny thought to himself, remembering his older sister. " _Yeah, you can._ "  
He shook his head to clear his thoughts and moved along on his journey, hoping to avoid any large armored royal guardsman coming his way.

Continuing along in Waterfall, which Danny was now coming to realize was a lot _larger_ than he had first thought, Danny encountered more bits of passing conversation and facts about human and monster souls. He learned that monsters had the ability to take a human soul after the human's death, and this only raised more questions for him about his half ghost status. Danny's situation was beginning to grow more complicated.

The ghostly duo also encountered a very large and very passively lonely giant octopus girl, who Danny felt, had they been in a story, would be kind of insignificant to the plot and unneeding of a large amount of detail. Danny continued on with more guilt weighing on his weird soul, even more questions bothering him. He blamed this all on how big Waterfallllllllllllllllllll was.

Entering the next room, Danny encountered a very shy and sad looking monster. She didn't even seem to want to fight, she just accidentally entered a battle scenario with him. Danny could relate. Shyren started singing a few notes and Danny found himself humming along. Chara mentioned that he should try to be a bit quieter, as Sans might be hanging around and you really never know with that guy. Danny had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but he tried to be as discreet as possible anyway. They both had a quiet little music session and Shyren seemed to be a bit more confident. It looked like all she really needed was someone to listen.  
Danny complimented her voice and ended the fight, and he and Chara moved along.

The next rooms were a bit different than the ghost boy was used to.  
One room held a piano and a few instructions to play the first eight notes of music he couldn't hear. Danny supposed that if he did, the mysterious door in the room would open up. Chara told him to follow them, and he obliged. They led him to the hallway the directions had mentioned, and told him to go a bit ahead and grab an umbrella, then come back and place it on the strange horned statue in the center of the wall. Curious, he did exactly that. The gentle rain of water droplet that had been dropping down onto the statue's head streamed down the umbrella's points and hit the stones below, producing a tune. Danny looked at Chara for explanation. All they did was stare at the fountain, and mutter "His theme."

Danny decided to enter the notes into the piano by himself. Chara looked like they needed a moment alone.

After an incredibly frustrating encounter with a very annoying dog an an ancient artifact that just looked like a red ball, Danny entered the room with the statue again, and went over to where Chara was sitting next to it. They got up without a word and both of them went to the next room, one that had an abundance of unexplained rainfall.  
Danny didn't know the significance of "His theme" or the fountain, but he thought that simple tune might be his favorite Underground music so far.

After grabbing another umbrella, the two ventured into the rain room and soon met MK, who couldn't hold an umbrella by themself and was happy to share one with Danny. Chara didn't need an umbrella, and Danny felt like his was unnecessary, considering the fact that his clothes were still pretty soaked through from his fall in the river. But a few raindrops sliding off of the top helped clean a bit of blood from his still aching leg wound, and MK needed an umbrella to stay dry, so Danny didn't really mind the bit of extra weight.

As they walked through the halls, MK talked about how cool and amazing Undyne was, and how she would totally beat any humans up who came to the Underground, because that's what she does. Somehow, this got Danny wondering how Chara had died, since Monsters seemed to hate humans so much. He decided that for now… it was best not to ask. After entering and exiting an area with a beautiful view of a giant castle, they all found themselves in a room with another umbrella stand. Danny gratefully returned his.

Unfortunately, a small ledge area had Danny feeling guilty he couldn't just use his powers to lift the Monster Kid up, since that would probably not be super great for his 'weak defenseless human' facade he had going on for the guard lady. Monster Kid helped him up the ledge and told him that they'd find another way up, and left, looking as excited as ever. Chara had just floated up by then, completely blank faced.

Moving on, Danny was able to read more ancient writing, and he learned of how the humans had basically forced all of Monsterkind underground for no reason, and killed many Monsters in doing so.  
Danny was beginning to become disgusted with his own race's actions, and Chara watched him carefully as they moved on.

But, Danny didn't have much time to reflect on his own humanity. As soon as he stepped a few feet onto a strange boardwalk-like area, a spear erupted from the ground _inches_ from his feet. He stumbled backwards in surprise, looking around and spotting a shadowy figure. Danny's eyes widened and even more spears appeared around him, them being foreshadowed only by a blue glow on the ground seconds before they sliced straight out of the boards. Danny didn't even have to think, he just _ran._

The next few minutes went by in a blur of speeding in all different directions while Chara frantically yelled instructions on where to dodge and where to go to find somewhere that wasn't a dead end. Every time a spear barely touched him, a whole barrage of them rained down on Danny, nearly turning him into a ghost kabob every ten seconds. Finally, after much panicking and shrieking, they finally reached their destination, which was…  
A dead end. Danny turned to Chara and was about to start ranting about how that was literally the exact opposite of where he wanted to go, but he was cut off by the clanking of metal advancing at a steady pace. Danny turned around and saw a hulking metal figure, and then, a spear was stabbing into the ground and rumbling came from all directions. Neither even saw what was coming. Before Danny could do more than yell, his side of the boardwalk became unattached and he was falling down, down, down into darkness.  
In an act of desperation, he called for his ghost form, and the last thing he saw was a flash of blue and white before everything was consumed in darkness.

… ****

 **Now that I finished the chapter can I go to sleep? It's nearly 7 AM at this point and I've been up all night typing this out. Why was it so** _ **hard.**_ **Honestly, that was ridiculous.  
Okay, so lemme try to think of what I wanted to tell you guys…  
Um, okay I always forget. Well, for one I wanted to let you know that whatever Danny found in the joke book and/or whispered into the echo flower is up to you, so go nuts.  
I also wanted to tell you how HAPPY I am that this got so many followers? Where were you all hiding? Honestly. Weird. Anyway, to answer a few questions, no, Danny did not notice the red ring around his eye from the telescope, and whether he will or not is going to be found out in the future. My poor little dumb dumb.  
Wow I don't even know what's been happening to Danny's character in this fic. If only his friends and family could see him now, right? Alright that's probably it for the black section. Don't worry, next chapter he's actually going to fight Undyne because I can't prolong the inevitable more than I already have. Oh right and please point out any weird mess ups doc manager might have made because I honestly don't think I have the presence of mind to review this entire chapter when I am only hanging on to consciousness by a thread.  
See you soooooon  
Flames will be used to dry Danny's clothes because he will probably need help doing that.**


	8. Red

**I only realized like a minute before typing this that there was a typo in the summary. WELP.  
I'm gonna fix that in just a sec, no worries. My goal for this chapter is to write it in like a couple hours so I don't have to attempt to stagger-write it throughout the entire week. I have… alot of other stuff to do. AND I REFUSE TO KEEP YOU WAITING FOR TOO LONG.**

 **By the way, I am about 3x more evil in this chapter. Be prepared, my little followers.**  
 **I tried to look up a reference video on youtube for this chapter (because I can do that now, yaay) and I keep getting distracted by different Undertale videos HELP.**  
 **Ooooh also Napstablook is in this chapter! Yaay! That was probably obvious, though.**  
 **I'm sad cuz I can feel myself getting a cold. I just thought you should all know this and share my pain.**  
 **Next day: I failed at the two hours thing and I am sick and I have to go places tomorrow.**  
 **This does not bode well for me. Did I forget to talk about the story named Forgiveness I wrote? Well it more or less gives my opinion on Chara and all the stuff I think about and whatever. I wrote it in a fit of passion and the urge to guilt trip people who hate Chara for no reason and I was sitting in the rain on my lawn with nothing but my phone and an umbrella with a perpetually determined expression. And also excitement because I love rain and writing.**

 **I just switched my doc's font to comic sans for no reason and also read that fic if you want to I don't know. I'm most proud of that one.  
I really, really failed at the two hours thing wow. This is like a week later.  
Sea: expert procrastinator and butcher of dialogue.  
Why am I simultaneously excited for the stuff that's going to happen in this chapter and also procrastinating writing it at every available opportunity what's wrong with me. Oh yeah and sorry about the mysteriously disappearing and then reappearing socks in the last chapter. Darn me and my continuity errors. My weird head thought that I had gotten only one of his socks stolen. I'll probably fixed that to "Blood soaked into his shoes" or something instead of into his sock. Thanks to the person who pointed that out! Is mad dummy even a dude? Man I don't heckin know. Oh, hey, you know who isn't a dude? Napstablook. Ugh I'm an idiot. I guess I'll just… awkwardly switch pronouns like halfway through. Ye. That's perfectly fine. I'm fine with this. I made this black section way too long WOW. Hey, you know how Sans' theme just kinda plays wherever he goes to most? Like the skelebro's house, Grillby's, stuff like that. Why does it play at Napstablook's snail race thing? Does he go there alot…? Blook mentions that some hairy guys shows up sometimes, but Sans isn't… I mean, he's a skeleton. Or maybe the theme isn't really only Sans' and I'm getting ahead of myself.**

...

 _It sounds like it came from over here..._ **  
** _Oh! You've fallen down, haven't you...  
Are you okay?  
Here, get up…  
_… _Chara, huh?  
That's a nice name._

Danny gasped in pain and shock immediately upon opening his eyes. He sat up slowly, holding his forehead. What was...

"Oh my _god_ you're _alive._ "

He looked around and right next to him, kneeling on a patch of flowers, was Chara.

"You fell like a _thousand_ feet, I thought you were dead for sure! That would have been a pretty stupid end to all of this…"

Danny stared at them. "Where…?"

They stared back. "You're in the garbage dump. You landed on a bunch of kinda random yellow flowers… how'd these things even get here…"

Danny looked down. Sure enough, it wasn't only Chara who was sitting on flowers. There was a large patch of them conveniently growing right where he'd fallen. That wasn't the only weird thing about the situation, though. There was… something off about Danny's appearance.  
"Oh no," he said, looking down at his legs. They were clothed in a part of a black jumpsuit. He knew what that meant. Chara clicked their tongue disappointedly.

"Yeah," the said, shaking their head. "If Undyne didn't think there was something up with you now, after seeing you transform like that, she's not going to be holding back much." They looked at him almost sympathetically. "Looks like you're not a harmless human child anymore."  
Danny sighed, but in a way was also relieved. Undyne wouldn't be the only one not holding back anymore.  
Besides, if he hadn't gone ghost right then, who would know what the fall could've done to his human form. If he'd fallen a bit faster, or just a little bit to the left or right, then…

Well, no point in thinking about what _could've_ happened when what _can_ happen is still a big worry. Danny shakily got onto his feet, and the two ghost children silently decided to keep going… but not without changing out of his ghost form first.  
The garbage dump wasn't a very big place, but _wow_ , there was a whole ton of trash. As Chara commented, the waterfalls brought in new garbage from the surface every day. It was an endless cycle of useless garbage. Danny and Chara looked at each other, taking notice of the metaphor for their lives…  
Or, as it could be seen, deaths.  
Speaking of death…

The two children continued on through the wonderland of slimy trash, and eventually came across an area that included two interesting things. One of these things was a cooler filled with space food bars. Predictably excited by this, Danny took as many bars as he could carry. Chara cared more about the other thing, which was a seemingly randomly placed dummy.

"... you should hit that thing," they said, floating up to it and raising a finger to it, as if they could actually poke it.

"... Why?"

"Because one, I can't, and two, that's literally what it's made for." They gave him a deadpan stare to accentuate their point. Danny was not impressed.

"I don't have time for this, Chara. I almost died and I need to focus on _not_ almost dying again." _I do that way too much,_ he thought, but didn't say, because he liked to not be that angsty out loud.  
And with that, he started moving ahead, Chara grumbling to themselves about missed opportunities as they followed him. As they neared the dump's exit, Danny had a sudden urge to stop. He didn't have much of a reason to do this, other than the fact that one random sudden electric guitar riff of monster music had him whipping his head around to stare at the dummy, which had suddenly grown a very, _very_ angry and red face and was staring directly into his eyes with the fury of someone who had just been wronged in the absolute _worst way._  
The dummy suddenly teleported to directly in front of Danny with its apparent incredible power that it just _has_ for some reason, and started _talking._

"How DARE you! Talking to yourself right next to where I'm standing… DISGRACEFUL! I am a ghost who lives inside a Dummy… so did my cousin, until YOU came along! My poor cousin! All he did was stand there, innocently, when YOU came along and destroyed his vessel with your… WEIRD HUMAN BLASTS OF ENERGY! How strange! How… HUMAN, I THINK! The nerve! I'll have to knock you down a few pegs… and by that I mean TAKE YOUR SOUL!"

And with that, they entered a battle. Danny looked a Chara with a confused and startled expression, and Chara looked back at him with the most undeserved "I knew this would happen" look he had ever seen. Oh, the Mad Dummy was saying something. Well he guessed that was dialogue he was never going to get back. Looking at his really limited options, Danny decided that since he neglected to talk to the dummy last time, maybe this time is gonna do the trick. He talked to the dummy. Or, er, he _tried_ to. It… doesn't seem much for conversation.  
Immediately after having this realization, Danny found himself having to dodge random projectile bits of stuffing that were being thrown at him by a bunch of _different_ dummies who would randomly appear and then disappear after throwing stuff at his soul. The only way to really avoid them, Danny found out quickly, was to run around back and forth and around in circles and let them fly off all around the place. Fortunately, Danny had a eureka moment when one of the stuffing balls hit the Mad Dummy instead of him. Mad Dummy proceeded to yell at his hired dummy employees about being careful with their magic, then pretended to not have said anything when Danny stared at him. Chara seemed to have caught on, too.

" _Oh_ I get it now. You're going to be running in a _lot_ of circles, Danny!"

Danny would have rolled his eyes had he not been so preoccupied with running around in a lot of circles. Fortunately, it seemed to be working. Unfortunately, Mad Dummy was fed up half-way through and decided to switch out his organic(?) employees with newer, rocket-throwing robotic dummies.  
Unfortunately for the dummy, Danny just ended up doing the exact same thing, except with even _more_ circles. Circle running x2.  
Honestly, Danny understood the Dummy's pain. He too had been shot at with missiles quite of few times. The difference was that he had avoided them… for the most part. Mad Dummy seemed to be fed up with everyone at this point, and so he screamed a bit more about how these new robot dummies were even _worse_ than the previous ones. He decided, after not a lot of deliberation, that these ones weren't worth it either.

"WHO NEEDS FRIENDS?!" Yelled the dummy. "I have KNIVES!"  
He then threw one solitary knife at Danny, which he dodged easily. Danny raised an eyebrow at the dummy. Mad Dummy started to sweat nervously.

"I'm… uh… out of knives. But whatever, whatever! WHATEVER-"

There followed more screaming and attacking. But then, Mad Dummy was interrupted by a sudden onslaught of… "What is this… Acid rain?! Oh forget this! I'm outta here!"  
Mad Dummy slid out of the room with an out of place slide whistle noise. Alright then.

Following in the dummy's place was...  
"Napstablook!" Danny smiled, relieved. He was worried that there was actual acid rain in the Underground. At this point it wouldn't really have surprised him if there was. Chara didn't really seem to be too surprised that Napstablook lived around here. Maybe they knew something about him… Danny didn't really care enough to think about it more than that.

"Sorry… I interrupted you, didn't I? As soon as I came over, your friend immediately left…"  
Napstablook looked like he wanted to cry again. "Oh no…. You guys looked like you were having fun… Oh no… I just wanted to say hi…. Oh nooooo…... "

"Hey, Napstablook, it's fine!" Danny said. That guy was a tool anyway.

"Oh…. well…. If you say so… well, I'm going to head home now.. Oh, um… feel free to "come with" if you want…. But no pressure… I understand if you're busy… it's fine… no worries… just thought I'd offer…"  
And with no extra periods to spare, Napstablook nervously floated backwards into the next room. Danny turned around to look at Chara, who was giving an odd look. Deciding not to try and understand that right now, Danny moved ahead quickly at an attempt to catch up with his nervous ghostly friend.

Thankfully, the ghost monster seemed to be waiting for him.  
"Hey… my house is up here.. In case you wanted to see... Or in case… you don't... "  
Blook gave a slight wince and floated up through the pathway in the middle of the room.  
Danny moved to follow, but was stopped by a glint of something in the corner of his eye.  
A glint of… yellow. Danny stepped back and looked down. There, on the ground, was a very faint yellow sparkle. Only about as big as his hand, and shining like a fading fallen star.

"Do you see that?!"

Danny jumped, and looked over at Chara with an alarmed expression. "Uh, you mean the yellow thing? Yeah…"

Chara clapped their hands together. "Perfect! I thought you'd never see one! Finally now I don't have to worry about you dying all the time…"

"Wait, what? What?!"

"Never mind that! Touch the yellow thing! TOUCH IT!"

Letting out an annoyed and slightly panicked noise, Danny knelt down and touched the yellow thing. Suddenly, he was filled with the faintest tinges of an emotion. One he couldn't really recognize at first thought… it seemed so distant, but it was there.  
"Huh…"

Chara floated away towards where Napstablook had disappeared, letting out an exaggerated spooky laugh. Danny rolled his eyes and followed them. That thing probably wasn't very important. Chara was just weird.

Blook's house was a bit… strange. It wasn't really just one house, actually, it was two identical houses of different colors built right next to each other. The left house was a bit… gloomy, and the right one was brighter in colors. Ironically, the gloomy one was the only one in use. Danny entered the house.

Inside, there was some simple but catchy tunes playing. Napstablook was on a computer in the corner, with headphones on. In the moment Danny had before the ghost noticed him, he was able to get a closer look at Napstablook, which allowed him to think a little about thoughts that'd been plaguing him for a while now.  
Was Napstablook even a dude? A they…? They seemed to be just… a ghost. Danny had noticed that a lot of the monsters around seemed to not identify by anything.  
Well, Danny didn't mind. It wasn't really his business, anyway.  
…. Hey, where was Chara…?  
Napstablook seemed to notice him.

"Oh…. I didn't really expect you to come... " The ghost looked around their living-space in the best gesture they could. "It's not really much, I know…"

Danny shrugged and smiled. He thought it was cool. Besides, all the needed living materials seemed to be here. There was a computer, a fridge, a tv… yeah, that was about it. Seemed okay to Danny. Hey, speaking of fridges…

Danny walked over to the fridge.

"Oh… are you hungry… I can get you something to eat…"  
Napstablook awkwardly floated over to the fridge, and phased their… hand(?) right through it. They pulled out a ghostly sandwich.  
"This is a ghost sandwich," they said.  
Instead of trying to figure out exactly where ghost sandwiches are made and how, Danny decided to just take the offered food and forget about that. He took the sandwich from Napstablook and bit into it.  
It tasted like a sandwich. "... huh." Danny felt like that was anticlimactic somehow.

Napstablook seemed a bit happier than before. Perhaps they were happy about their hospitality, who knows.

"Uh… after a good meal, I like to lie on the ground and feel like garbage. Do you want to join me…"

"Uhh…"

"Say yes," said Chara, suddenly just appearing behind Danny.

" _AHHh_ hhyes?!" replied Danny. What a fantastic save. Napstablook wasn't really expecting such an excited answer, but they didn't seem to mind too much.

"Alright," They said. "Follow my lead." They floated onto the floor and just flopped right onto the ground on their back, Danny not far behind them. Chara decided to join them too, laying down horizontally next to both of them, so all of their heads were touching. Napstablook told Danny that if he wanted to get up, he'd just have to move, which was kind of obvious, but hey, it was true.  
After about thirty seconds of absolute silence, unexpected things started to happen. In the quiet atmosphere of the room, the image of a galaxy started to fade in around the ghostly trio. Stars dotted the ceiling, walls, and floor all around them. It was _amazing._ Maybe the coolest thing Danny had seen in the Underground yet. He found it difficult not to cry tears of joy, it was just _really cool.  
_ Five minutes later, and finally Danny decided to stop. Honestly, he could've done that for the rest of his life, but he was in the process of trying to not be murdered horrifically by large monster people, so he decided to get going.

Danny thanked Napstablook tearfully for showing him that amazing experience of lying on the floor and pretending to be garbage. Napstablook seemed slightly overwhelmed, but happy. Chara rolled their eyes a little, and they left.  
(Well, not until after playing around with Blook's spooky music collection of course. The spooky holiday music was his favorite.)  
Once they were both out of earshot of Napstablook's house and continuing on their merry way, Danny questioned Chara about where they had been while he was hanging out with Napstablook. Chara said that they were visiting the racing snails.  
Um…. alright. Another thing Danny didn't want to question about the Underground. Not long after going on their way, the two ghost children came across a sign. It said _North: Blook Acres, East: Hotland, ?: Temmie Village.  
_ …? _  
_"Um… what's-"

"We _have to go there._ " Chara suddenly seemed more serious than Danny had ever seen them.

"What? Why-"

"Shhhhhhhhh," Suddenly there was a small finger pushing into Danny's face. "No asking. We gotta."

Danny sighed. "Okay, fine, whatever. I'm sure we have _so_ much time for detours. Let's go."  
And go is what they did.  
Along the way, the two came across a shop (which they ignored in pursuit of their main goal), a few more ancient tablets of knowledge which told about the monster's surrendering to and imprisonment by the human race, and more puzzles!  
Yay…?  
These puzzles were… different. Different and… more complicated. And annoying. Very annoying.

Speaking of annoying, along the way Danny entered a fight with special enemy Temmie! Yaya! She was… interesting. And her attacks were… they were… terrifying. They were terrifying. This requires no further description.  
Danny's horrified face gave away everything. Chara was quiet.  
Anyway, Temmie was very happy to see such a cute human! Apparently she thought all humans were cute. Danny wasn't notified of this.  
Needless to say, this was a very uncomfortable encounter.  
Hey, _speaking of uncomfortable,_ Danny's unfortunately limited options of speech led to him confusedly flexing in front of Temmie.  
Bad idea. Very bad idea. The flexing summoned…  
 _Oh. Oh no._ _ **  
Aaron.  
**_ The sudden wink-encrusted appearance of Aaron caused Temmie to have a nervous breakdown. Danny nearly had a heart attack. Chara started paying attention suddenly. It was chaos.  
Danny decided the only way to escape this situation was to run as fast as he possibly could. Even though, due to his leg injury that he had just spontaneously remembered, this proved to be quite difficult. But his desperation to get out of the awkward fight gave him a boost in power that he used to sprint away as Chara followed as best they could. Danny ended up sprinting past a couple of battles before he stopped. He decided quickly that this was a good thing.

"You missed Temmie Village…"

"... no offense, but I'm kind of glad," Danny said, looking indifferent. Chara pouted at him, obviously upset at some missed opportunity. Danny rolled his eyes and continued on. Honestly, it's not like that place had anything useful. Just more Temmies. That's it.  
They continued through Waterfall. Not long after what was possibly the most irritating light puzzle in the entire Underground, Danny and Chara reached a room that was… dark. Yes, it was very dark. And wet, but that wasn't out of the ordinary. The shadows Danny's form cast upon the ground and water filled him with a sense of foreboding. He and Chara looked at each other a bit nervously. This didn't look like a good time.

It was quiet… too quiet. They reached the far end of the room, and found an echo flower.  
Danny leaned close to the flower, and it whispered…

 **"Behind you."**

Danny's heartbeat filled his ears and suddenly, it wasn't very quiet anymore.

"Um… Danny…"

Danny whipped around, and found looked at what Chara seemed so nervous about. Or, who, really. The room suddenly seemed a lot lighter, and it was easier to see the looming armored figure of Undyne not even twenty feet from him.  
Really, he should've expected this.

Undyne stepped closer and closer, and Danny backed against the wall, considering that maybe phasing through the wall wasn't such a bad idea after all.  
Then, she spoke.

"... Seven. Seven Human souls." Her voice seemed as serious as her reputation. "With the power of seven human souls, our king... **king ASGORE Dreemurr…**  
… Will become a god. With that power… ASGORE can finally shatter the barrier. He will finally take the surface back from humanity… and give them back the suffering and pain that we have endured.  
… Understand, human? This is your only chance at redemption. Give up your soul…  
Or I'll tear it from your body."

Danny shrank against the wall a bit more. Neither of those options sounded very great to him. Undyne got into a fighting stance and summoned a spear from nothing. Then, she charged!  
Right when Danny felt the very beginning of a battle forming, Monster Kid tumbled out of the tall grass beside him.

"Undyne! I'll help you fight!"  
Monster kid looked at Undyne's spear, then at Danny, who was still scrunched up against the wall. They looked back at Undyne, then at Danny again.  
"You did it! Undyne is RIGHT in front of you! You've got front row seats to her fight!"  
The looked between the two again.  
"... Wait… Who's she fighting?"

Danny grimaced. Undyne's expression under her helmet was not visible, but her feelings were. She grabbed Monster Kid by the cheek and started dragging him away with an air of exasperation. Monster Kid's voice faded as they were dragged away.

"H-hey! You aren't going to tell my parents about this, are you?"

And just like that, they were gone. Danny dropped to the ground, feeling sort of like he was going to pass out. Wow, that was more intense than he had expected it to be, all things considered. Chara sighed a little. They looked at each other, and Danny got up. Chara led him over to the water again, and surprise! A weird path of light had just randomly appeared. The two walked up the path.

The path was absolutely gorgeous, to be perfectly honest. Looking all around, one could see little firefly-like shining yellow dots just floating carelessly in the air. The surroundings were different shades of contrasting dark and light blues, the light blue coming from the strategically placed echo flowers. The shed their soft glow on the nearby dark, dark blue grass and reflected on the water, making the place look beautiful. Even above there were still glowing stones that looked just like stars. While walking along the path, Danny picked up on a passing conversation that he'd forgotten all about, almost.

"... hmm… if I say my wish… you promise you won't laugh at me?"

"Of course I won't laugh!"

"Someday, I'd like to climb this mountain we're all buried under. Standing under the sky, looking at the world all around… that's my wish."

In the next flower, there was laughter. "... hey, you said you wouldn't laugh at it!"

Danny slowly walked over to the next flower, and listened. "Sorry, it's just funny…  
That's my wish, too."

Chara decided to ignore Danny's lost expression for the moment, as they imagined asking about it would only make things worse. They weren't feeling the best about themselves either.  
Both of them didn't talk, deciding to let the distant sounds of the waterfalls fill the silence.  
Before leaving, Danny glanced at the ancient prophetic writing at the end of the hall.

"However… there is a prophecy. The Angel… the One who has Seen the Surface…  
They will return. And the underground will go empty."

They left the room.

In the next room, there was a bridge. It was slippery with water, but not enough for Danny to lose his traction, thankfully. They were almost finished crossing the bridge and then they both heard a voice.

"Yo!" Monster Kid carefully walked across the bridge and up to Danny. "Yo, I know I'm not supposed to be here, but... " They shifted their feet nervously. "I wanna ask you something.  
… Man, I've never had to ask anyone this before… Um… Yo… You're human, right?"  
Danny paused for a second, then nodded his head.

"Man! I knew it! … Well, I know it now, I mean… Undyne told me, um, 'stay away from that human.' So, like, umm… I guess that makes us enemies or something. But I kinda stink at that, haha. Yo, say something mean so I can hate you? Please?"

"W-what? Um… no, man, I can't…"

"Yo, what? So I have to do it?" They grimaced, as did Danny. "Here goes nothing… Yo, I… I hate your guts.  
… Man, I... I'm such a turd. I'm… I'm gonna go home now."

Monster kid backed up, then turned around and ran across the bridge, forgetting about how slippery it was. Halfway across the bridge, they slipped, and fell off the bridge… but caught on last second… somehow… "Yo, w-w-wait! Help! I tripped!"

Chara's eyes widened and Danny almost had a heart attack. He let out a small yell, and was about to rush forward and save them, but suddenly, Undyne appeared. They had a stare off, but Monster Kid was slipping, and Danny had no time to lose. He leaped over to Monster Kid and pulled them up without hesitation. They both caught their breath for a moment, an MK noticed Undyne.

"Y… y… yo… dude… If… If y-you wanna hurt my friend… You're gonna have to get through me, first."

Undyne hesitated. Then, she backed up, then backed up a little more, then turned around and was gone. They both let out a breath. MK turned around to Danny.

"She's gone… Yo, you really saved my skin. Guess being enemies was just a nice thought, haha. We'll just have to be friends instead.  
… man, I should REALLY go home… I bet my parents are worried sick about me!"  
They took a few careful steps away, then turned around again. "Later, dude!"  
They ran away, Danny smiling and waving at them goodbye. He sighed.

"Wow, both of you are huge dorks," Chara said, ruining the mood. Danny decided to ignore that, and turned purposefully in the opposite direction, continuing on the path. Chara shrugged and followed, pretending that the quiet freakout they'd had didn't even happen.

The two kept on walking until the found a dead end in their straight path. Danny was about to head into the tunnel-like path in front of them, but Chara poked him in the shoulder. He raised an eyebrow at them, and they pointed up. Danny looked up. His eyes widened and he groaned a little. There, standing on the highest point of the rock structure above them, was Undyne, facing her armored back away from them.

"Seven," She said, giving Danny deja-vu. "Seven human souls, and **King ASGORE** will become a god. Six," She turned to halfway face him. "That's how many we have collected thus far."  
She turned to face him fully, Her armor glinting in the light.  
"Understand? Through your seventh and final soul, this world will be transformed."  
She turned again, for apparent dramatic effect.  
"First however, as is customary for those who make it this far..."  
There she goes, turning again to face Danny. He raised an eyebrow.  
"I shall tell you the tragic tale of our people."  
She turned away, looking upwards dramatically. Chara groaned and rolled their eyes.  
"It all started, long ago…"  
She paused and turned to face him.  
"... No, you know what?"  
Sudden _VIOLENT_ music pulsed through the air and tore through Danny's eardrums.  
"SCREW IT!  
WHY SHOULD I TELL THAT STORY  
WHEN YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE!?  
NGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Danny was startled into a fighting stance, making a really surprised and confused (and slightly amused) expression. Chara looked awestruck.  
A bright flash of light briefly made everything pure white, and when it was gone, Undyne had no helmet on. Her bright red hair flowed behind her in an inherently awesome anime ponytail (which Danny only knew about because of Sam), and she turned around to face him with a bright glint in her yellow eyes. She had blue skin… Undyne was a fish lady. A violent fish lady with sharp teeth and a bloodthirsty expression.

"You! You're standing in the way of everybody's hopes and dreams! Alphys' history books made me think humans were cool… with their giant robots and flowery swordsmen."

Danny and Chara quirked an eyebrow simultaneously. Wait…

"BUT YOU? You're just a coward! Hiding behind that kid so you could run away from me again!"

"Hey wait a minute I didn't-!"

"And let's not forget your- DON'T INTERRUPT MY DIALOGUE, NGAH!"  
Undyne cleared her throat.  
"And let's not forget your wimpy goody-two-shoes-schtick! Oooh! I'm making such a difference by hugging random strangers! You know what would be more valuable to everyone? IF YOU WERE DEAD!"

Danny flinched. That… hit a sore spot.

"That's right, human! Your continued existence is a crime!"

Ow…

"Your life is all that stands between us and our freedom!"

Wow she's really laying it on there…

"Right now, I can feel everyone's hearts pounding together! Everyone's been waiting their whole lives for this moment! But we're not nervous at all. When everyone puts their hearts together, they can't lose! Now, human! Let's end this, right here, right now. I'll show you how determined monsters can be! Step forward when they're ready! Fuhuhuhu!"

Was… that an anime laugh? Danny didn't think he'd ever be ready for this.  
He was right, unfortunately.

He was about to step forward, but Chara stopped him.

"Wait! Go to the save point!"

"What-?"

"NO TIME! SAVE POINT!" They gestured wildly to the little yellow sparkle in the corner. Danny looked at them strangely and touched it, like he had done before. Chara let out a breath. Danny went ahead of them and decided to start the battle. Honestly, it's not like he could be any more ready than this…

"That's it, then! No more running away! HERE I COME!"

She leapt down at him and the battle began!

Undyne swiped a spear at Danny and his soul become a glowing green color, reminding him of ectoplasm.

"As long as you're GREEN you CAN'T ESCAPE! Unless you learn to face danger head on… You won't last a SECOND against ME!"

Well goody goody for him, then. Danny's soul manifested some sort of shield, and he barely had time to blink before spears were heading right for him. Danny instinctually swept the soul-shield in front of him to deflect the spears, and it worked! Each spear made a pleasant ding sound as it hit his shield.  
Well this wasn't too bad…

Undyne flashed a menacing smile. Danny decided to be cocky, and asked her if that was all she had. Not his best idea.  
Undyne smiled, if you could call a sharp-toothed smirk a smile.

"Not bad! Then how about THIS!?"

More spears were thrown, and in different directions, but Danny still deflected them. He smirked at Undyne, albeit a bit shakily. The spears got _faster._

"For years we've dreamed of a happy ending…"

More spears, more deflecting.

"And now, sunlight is just within our reach!"

The spears are faster, there are more of them, Chara is yelling the directions from the sidelines…

"I won't let you snatch it away from us!"

Faster…

"NGAHHH! Enough warming up!"

Spears were thrown in all different directions this time, and it seemed impossible, but Danny got them all! He was relieved, and relaxed for a second-

"DANNY LOOK OUT!"

He spun around just in time to see a spear head straight for him, a bigger one than the others-

And go straight through his chest.  
It all seemed to stop.  
Danny looked down.  
Heh… it's funny… with all the blue in Waterfall, it had been awhile since he'd seen this much red…

Danny fell onto his hands and knees.  
But this… isn't funny.  
Chara yelled half-ran half-floated as fast as the could to kneel down beside him. They seemed about as panicked as he looked… but it was hard to notice your facial expression when you had just taken a _spear_ through the _chest_.  
Little fuzzy dots black and rainbow dots fire-worked through his vision, and Danny saw stars. But there weren't any stars down here… Danny felt like laughing, but it wasn't funny.

" _No no no no nononononono_ this isn't happening again this _can't_ happen again… stop bleeding…"

What was Chara talking about they weren't there the first time he had died… well, half died. Was it finally happening for real. It was hard to notice when he fell to the ground- sideways, as to not fall onto the spear sticking out of him. Impaled on a spear, what a lame end to his story.

"No no this isn't the end- stop- _listen_ to me Danny…"

He can't…

" _Listen-"_

I can't…

"Stay DETERMINED!"

And it all went a deep, deep black.

…

… **.  
*Clears throat*  
**… **so how about that weather lately… lot of rain… eheheh.  
SORRY ABOUT THAT.  
No but guys, I mean, it really looks like Danny's gotten into a tight spot this time… he might need help… but who will help him?  
eue let's see if they figure it out.**

 **AnYwAy, sorry this took so long! I've been having a VERY stressful month. It has not been fun. But I'll be fine! I've been excited to hear your reactions to this latest little ditty… *Cackles with thunder and lightning in the background* Hey maybe I'll upload another crack chapter next. That'll be fun. For me. Anyway, I'll see you all again in the next chapter! Have a great tiiiiiiiiiiiiime waiiiitinnngg.**  
 **Flames will be used to BURN ME AT THE STAKE WIIITCHHH**

 **Oh and it's the fifteenth, happy Annoy Squidward day. Plot twist you're Squidward and I'm annoying you.**

 **By the way, again, if you think you've found an error, tell me. Please. It'll help me. No seriously I'm looking back at this in Doc Manager and it messed a bunch of stuff up. Like, the echo flower that was supposed to say "Behind you" Just said "u." for some reason and I was like "...? Okay? Yeah that's spooky alright." There might be more mistakes that I've missed, so please tell me if you find one. That's all, bye for now!  
(oh my god it re-mistaked itself? Why? Will it say that eternally now?)  
(IT DID IT AGAIN IS ANYONE SEEING THIS)  
(I fixed it. Probably)**


	9. Fun Isn't Fading Away

**Okay so, I'm going to have some difficulty getting the next chapter out for you guys. Some stuff is coming up that'll make it hard to update, but I'm gonna keep it vague to avoid concern. Anyway, I won't ever stop writing this fic until it's finished, so no worries everyone! I even have a bunch of other fics planned after this one is finished. Mostly for other fandoms, but no worries! I want to make a sequel for Ghosts and Magic when I get the chance. I already have ideas.**

 **(K I wrote this about a month ago? Aha. Yeah a lot of really… Ngh, let's say** _ **unfortunate**_ **events happened right on schedule nyahA. Yeah. Oh along with the added fact that my computer was stolen. All my art is gone. It sucks. I mean it wasn't good art but ya know. That's why this chapter took so long, but you got it! Sorry if it isn't… that good)  
Let's get the show on the road. I wonder how Danny's doing?**

 **Oh my God I forgot Undyne only has one eye. Another continuity error probably, oh boy.  
** …

Silence. It was completely silent, nothing but an all encompassing darkness on every side, not that Danny could turn his head, or had a head to turn anyway. It was much too quiet there, wherever he was, and it was much too quiet in his own mind. Any physical end to one's story would surely be this, pure numbness and emptiness that equated to an absolute nothingness in every way.

He felt like he was… forgetting something. It probably didn't matter. Nothing felt like it mattered here.

But then… it did. A burst of warmth came to being in Danny's senses, and he became aware of the sound of muffled voices speaking words of encouragement. They sounded familiar… but he'd never heard them before. A deep black landscape disappeared as a subtle red glow began to envelop his full field of vision until he saw nothing but one glowing red heart. Danny closed what, in this state, equated to his eyes, and the red glow faded into a blinding yellow…

…

Danny opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn't woken up.

" _Danny!"_

Chara's face was immediately the only thing in his field of vision the moment he was aware of his surroundings. They seemed both incredibly irate and seriously relieved.

"I thought you wouldn't pull through, you- you _stupid-_ I can't believe I was _worried-!"_ Chara pulled at their hair as they floated away from his face and back to the ground. That's when Danny noticed he was standing up. Looking around even more, Danny saw a certain figure standing atop a small cliff-side.

Danny's heart immediately started racing. Faster than his brain could even comprehend his actions, Danny went completely invisible. Chara blinked and squinted in his direction.

"Um, Danny-?"

It was right about then when the shadowy figure decided to speak up.

"NGAH! I KNEW IT!" Undyne stomped her foot on the ground and leaned forward, searching for Danny wildly. "There's been something _fishy_ about you from the beginning-" Undyne paused a grimaced for a second, muttering to herself, then continued on like nothing had happened.

"And NOW, you just up and disappear! Who even _does_ that?! Come out into the open and face me like a MONSTER!"

Unbeknownst to Undyne, Danny had been growing steadily panicked as the warrior kept yelling. Right after she finished her last sentenced, there was a flash of light, and Danny flew out of there in his ghost form at top speed, leaving nothing but one shoe in his place. Chara could only follow by what seemed kind of like an instinct. After about two minutes of panicked flying, Danny came to a stop in one of the light mazes in Waterfall. He floated into a sitting position on the ground, and put his head in his hands, still invisible. Chara just sat down next to him, their assumption of where he is being (mostly) correct.  
"Hey, Danny…"

Shaky breathing came from Chara's right side, and they turned that way. "It's fine, Danny, you just… I mean, you died," Danny's breath hitched a little. "but um… you're fine… right? Danny?"

Danny very slowly and tentatively faded back into visibility. Chara grimaced, his face was all splotchy with green and there were tears running down his face. He was a mess.  
"Wow, you're a mess," they said. Danny rolled his eyes, sniffing.

"I didn't _just_ die," Danny said, nearly biting out his words. "I was _impaled,_ I felt myself fade away. I literally _died_. For real! There's not anything _just_ about that…" he wiped his eyes, his ghostly glow fading a bit. Chara tilted their head, eyebrows scrunching together.

"Yeah, I know how that feels."

Danny looked up at them in some sort of confused realization. "You were impaled?"

"Wh- no, what? No. I mean I know what fading away feels like." Chara shook their head and looked down. "I know it too well. The only difference is that I didn't get to come back."

Danny looked down again. "I'm sorry…"

"You _should be!"_

"Wha-?"

Chara sat up suddenly, fire in their eyes. "I didn't just go and die all that time ago to let _you_ , the last chance for my family and friend's freedom, sit around and cry! NO!" They stood up and stomped on the ground to punctuate their next words. "You are NOT going to SIT around while Undyne's still over there, standing around and waiting to kick your butt! Get UP!"

Danny stared at Chara with a blank expression, green eyes wide. "Um, wait-"

"UPUPUPUPUP!"

"Okay, geez…" Danny stood up, sparing a glance at his ghost form's attire. Strangely, he was still wearing his sweater. It was now blue and purple instead of pink and yellow. Danny frowned, and changed back to his human form. He liked it normal. He blinked. Where'd his other shoe go…?

"Come on," Chara gestured for Danny to follow them, and they stomped off through the light maze, despite it being completely darkened. Danny followed them carefully, not wanting to step on anything with his bare feet. Thankfully, there was only soft grass and cool stone under his toes.

Strangely, instead of heading towards where Undyne was waiting, Chara led him to the completely opposite direction. Danny stepped after them with confusion. Had this path always been here…?  
They entered an area with a… curious selection of music. As they entered the room, Danny's mouth gaped open slightly.

To say the least… it was… interesting. The room they had entered was full of small, fluffy and white creatures that resembled a dog mixed with a cat, with dark human hair and a very simple looking face. And they… vibrated. They were familiar… _too_ familiar. Of course, this could only mean...

"This," Chara said, gesturing widely. "is Temmie village, the most _interesting_ place in the Underground. acquaint yourself."

Danny looked at Chara, his eyes squinted and mouth open slightly. Why exactly was this more important than Undyne…? Chara just gave him a deadpan expression, and gestured to a Temmie, which decided to speak up right then, as though it could see the invisible child. But of course it couldn't. Probably.

"Hoi! I'm Temmie! And this is my friend, Temmie!"

The next Temmie spoke up.

"Hoi! I'm Temmie! And this is my friend, Temmie!"

"Hoi! I'm Temmie! Don't forget my friend!"

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess… your name is…?"

"Hi, I'm Bob."

Danny blinked, then gave a surprised smile. This was already proving to be quite the experience. He decided it would be best to inspect the room a bit more. Turning his head around the room, Danny discovered a multitude of things. For one, there was a large painting on the wall depicting a Temmie facing a very threatening dragon. A plaque under it told about the apparent 'rich history of Tem.' It didn't elaborate beyond that. Danny didn't know how to feel about that. As he walked further into the area, he spotted a large Temmie statue, a box, what looked to be a Tem shop, a mushroom, and a Temmie with an egg. Danny curiously walked up to the egg guardian Temmie, Chara floating beside him with a nostalgic expression.

"Uh, hey little… Temmie, whatcha got there?"

"This is Tem child!1! Temmie will be a great mom!1"

The egg appeared to be hard boiled. Danny was slightly unnerved by the amount of numerals he detected in the Temmie's speech pattern. He hoped there wasn't more of this to come.

Chara was snickering beside Danny as they urged him to talk to the Mushroom (monster?) Next. He did so. The Mushroom started to dance and sing.

"Mushroom Dance, Mushroom dance. Whatever could it mean?"

The Mushroom paused in its dancing and looked up, its blue cap lifting to reveal its grim soul-searching eyes.

"It's symbolizes my inner torment, trapped here by my hyphae.

My struggle to pull away,

My struggle to escape,

But alas, to no avail."

Danny's shocked expression caused Chara to burst into unrestrained giggles as he watched the Mushroom lower its cap and go still again.

"... Okay _bye."_ Danny speed walked backwards and bumped into another Temmie.

"OH NO!" The Temmie screeched, eyes widening. "Temmie is allergic to human!" large hives sprouted all over the Temmie's face, but they strangely didn't act all too distressed after a couple of seconds. "Hoives!"

Danny backed away and turned around, doing a double take as he spotted a large crack in the wall of the cave. Inside of the crack, he could see light glinting off of shiny eyes… _Temmie eyes_. He was being _watched_.

Danny held the bridge of his nose in one hand and looked down, slowly shaking his head. What was the point of this again? Oh right, there _wasn't_ a point.

Chara decided to stop laughing for a moment and got Danny's attention by snapping their fingers next to his ear.

"Hey, go look in the shop next."

Danny sighed and decided to do that and get it over with. Once he entered the surprisingly well lit room, he was greeted by, you guessed it, another Temmie.

"hOI!1 Welcome to… da Tem shop!"

Danny listened to the new music, which somehow managed to top the last selection in strange catchiness. He gazed at the wide selection of items, which included, but was not limited to, a bunch of useless garbage.

Danny pointed to a selection of mysterious bags. "What are…?"

"Tem flakes," Chara supplied. They pointed to each bag in a row as they continued their explanation. "normal Tem flakes, less normal Tem flakes, super _expensive_ Tem flakes, and they all do more or less the same exact thing."

"Yeah but what _are_ they. What are they _made_ from."

Chara's brows furrowed together in a thoughtful expression. "I don't… know. I don't know."

Danny looked at the Tem flakes and decided it was best to back away slowly.

"woUld human like to help Tem?!1 Help Tem get 'nough muns for cooleg! Been collectin' many muns!1"

Chara looked at Danny. "Hey, yeah _human,_ don't you have enough muns to help a poor Temmie get to cool leg?" They smiled widely at him. "Help a Temmie out."

The edges of Danny's mouth turned down into a frown. He probably didn't have enough gold to pay for the Tem's college education, but he wasn't one to completely ignore those in need of help. No matter _how_ strange. And fluffy. And kind of scary.

"Um…" he sorted through his jean pockets and pulled out about 2000 G to give to the Temmie. It was most of his gold. The Tem seemed pleased.

"YayA! Human help is ver appreciated! Tem thanks!"

Danny smiled nervously and walked out of the shop, Chara smiling smugly as they followed behind him. As he walked by the Tem statue, he couldn't help but feel like its eyes were following him… this place was creepy.

Danny's eyes trailed down to the excitedly hopping Tem's on the ground, calling out greetings and engaging in shenanigans. It was… also kind of cute, in a way. He smiled slightly. Chara spoke up from beside him.

"So, was coming here worth it?"

Danny glanced over at them, in his own thoughts. "Why did you want to come here so badly?"

"Well," Chara drawled slightly. "At first, it was just because this place is funny, _but,_ I also wanted to distract you from your little anxiety attack thing you did back there. You really need to calm down, Danny. If you keep freaking yourself out, you're going to be dying a _lot_ down here."

Danny stared at them in surprise. He actually _had_ forgotten about Undyne. The Temmies were pretty distracting… he wasn't going to admit it, but Chara's plan had worked pretty well. "uh… thanks, Chara."

Chara looked a little bothered for a minute, then turned up their mouth and smirked slightly. "Well, what I _really_ mean to say is you need to stop being such a cry baby. I'm not here to _babysit_ you, I'm here to try and make you not _die_." they weakly lifted a hand and gestured towards the door. "Enough talking, time to fight a fish."

…

Right before they reached Undyne's area of current residence, Danny decided to take some measures to ensure his survival. Firstly, he had no choice but to don what he assumed was the best armor he had, the pink tutu. Danny didn't really feel stronger, and felt pretty ridiculous, but Chara assured him that it'd help. Wait...

Danny checked his back pocket, and found the one ballet shoe he'd picked up from that bush back in Waterfall, and had evidently neglected to actually put on. Chara informed him that the shoe was in fact a weapon. Okay… that doesn't sound real but okay. Danny put the one shoe on, and got a strong feeling of irony suddenly for reasons he decided not to dwell on. Chara smirked at him as his expression fell into an irritated glare, and they both moved forward to where Undyne awaited.

Danny felt his heart speed up again at the thought of fighting Undyne. She _knew_ now, didn't she? She knew he wasn't… a _regular_ human. Danny gulped. Using his powers could make things better for him… or much, much worse. Who knows if Undyne had been holding back all this time? Well…

Danny looked down at his new 'armor.' He was just going to have to tough it out as a human and hope for the best for now, wasn't he?

Immediately once they arrived in front of Undyne, she started her speech again, but with a much colder attitude than before. Once she tore off her helmet, Danny could feel her one eye _burning_ into his soul. Undyne meant business this time, that was for sure. Danny tried to not let his nervousness shine through, but he was failing, badly.

"Look," Chara said, gaining Danny's attention but not his eye contact. "All you have to do is _not_ let your guard down this time, okay? Just… don't do that, and it won't be like last time, remember that."

Danny nodded hesitantly, and Undyne seemed to take it as a cue to start her attack. She leaped down from the cliff side and initiated a battle, just like last time. Danny's soul floated from his chest, and right before Undyne swiped a spear over, he noticed something… different.

The soul was still yellow, sure, but there was a bit of a new color to it, a tint, you could call it. It was surrounded by the slightest red glow…

And then it was green, and the battle had begun.

"Alright, human… or, WHATEVER you are, don't think your little tricks will let you beat me so easily! This is a _fair_ battle, one on one, to the DEATH! I accept NO unfair advantages," Undyne yelled as she towered over Danny, pulling bright blue spears from seemingly nowhere and all but throwing one at Danny to take. "Your soul is going to save people, no matter if you're weirder than other humans, and can turn invisible and do OTHER stupid useless things!"

Undyne let the first barrage of slower spears hone in on Danny, and he blocked them with relative ease. Invisibility being useless? Well, in this situation it probably was. Intangibility, however, would be _loads_ more useful.

"Once I have your soul, ASGORE will finally be able to break the barrier, and every MONSTER'S dream will finally come true! I won't let you stop that from happening!"

Danny blocked more spears, this time not letting himself become unfocused from his task. He grimaced as he was doing this, the spears were as fast as last time, and he hadn't even teased Undyne at all!

"NGAH! SO JUST DIE ALREADY YOU LITTLE TWERP!"

Spears were sent from all sides and Danny could _swear_ that one almost hit him from behind. Maybe the tutu _was_ helping, after all. He couldn't say the same for the ballet shoes.

Chara cheered him on from the sidelines, saying he was doing better than before, which helped a little bit. But only a _little_ bit.

Undyne kept ranting angrily about his soul and monsterkind, but Danny was tuning her out at this point, being too focused on blocking spears to respond to anything else. And then, he had a chance! One of Undyne's attacks had her throw one larger spear at his chest, which he now saw coming, obviously, and to keep it fair, she had let his soul go from her green hold on it. Danny saw his opportunity and he _took_ it, proceeding to book it out of there as fast as he could go. And Danny was really fast when he was being chased by someone intent on murdering him; he'd had a lot of previous experience on doing so. Unfortunately, Undyne was _also_ fast, and had nearly caught up with him before he suddenly got a call from Papyrus and for some _indiscernible_ reason decided to stop everything to answer him. For some equally nonsensical reason, Undyne stopped too.

Danny was left to listen to Papyrus talk _at_ him about how Undyne and _the human_ would be _fantastic_ friends, and they should all hang as soon as physically possible, and then he hang up, leaving Danny to stare awkwardly at Undyne until they both started running again.

Undyne managed to catch him again immediately once they hit Hot Land. Walking on extremely heated ground with only one shoe _hurt_. Luckily, he was easily able to escape her grasp, and even faster than the last time. Even luckier, Sans was fast asleep at a sentry station right in front of them, and Undyne's anger at his unhelpful sleeping times allowed Danny to get a head start in running again. Not even a minute later, the effect of the heat started noticably wearing on both of them, and they began slowing down, Undyne especially.

"Have to… keep moving… armor… so hot…."

And with that, she collapsed. Danny blinked at her and looked at Chara quizzically. They shrugged and told him that she's a fish, this was bound to happed. Danny looked around with a bit of worried urgency and his eyes lit up immediately upon seeing a very conveniently placed Water cooler not ten feet away from him. Danny immediately walked over there and just… lifted the entire plastic water jug from it, spilling water everywhere before he turned it upside down, carrying it to Undyne before dumping gallons of water directly onto her unconscious head and back.

Undyne immediately sputtered back into consciousness, speaking incoherently and looking at Danny with an expression that said 'what the hell' better than any words could. Danny dropped the jug and and backed away, hands up and eyes shifting.

Undyne heaved herself up and muttered "You could've just gotten a cup…" before looking at him for a couple seconds and walking away without another word. Danny felt kind of stupid. He _could_ have just gotten another cup, but she was a _fish,_ wasn't she? He guessed he could call that petty revenge, if anything other than a silly mistake. Chara looked amused. At least they were having fun.

Danny frowned. "Well, now that _that's_ over…" Danny just then realized how hot he felt. He hadn't even been in Hot land for ten minutes and he already felt like his insides were boiling, such were the benefits of having an ice core, right?

Danny turned around and spotted a large, blindingly white building just up ahead.

"... do you think that place has any water?"

Chara frowned at the place, their eyes lighting up with recognition. "I don't know about that, but I know what it _does_ have in it."

Danny looked at them questioningly, and Chara grinned.

"The royal scientist."

…

 **Why does Chara always have the last word, It's weird. Oh and congratulations for those who wished for Danny's determination in the reviews, ya brought him back alive.**

 **I mean, let's not mention what would've happened if you hadn't have said anything. Let's not mention it because I have no idea what would have happened. I'm probably making this too interactive.**

 **Anyway, Temmies are strangely difficult to write? But hey, they're great.**

 **I feel like this chapter isn't really on par with the other chapters, strangely. I guess that's up for you guys to judge! And to clear up any confusion, the safe point healed all of Danny's injuries. He didn't notice because they just kind of weren't a problem anymore. Hope that helps! I feel like I needed to say something else but I forgot.**

 **Oh yeah, I accidentally foreshadowed Danny's death in the seventh chapter, heheh. That was funny to me.**

 **Flames will be used to light Danny on FIRE BECAUSE WE'RE ALL SADISTIC IN THIS FANDOM**


	10. Everything is Terrible

**This is my latest chapter yet, I think. I should get an academy award for latest fanfiction chapter. Seriously though, I'm really, genuinely sorry this chapter took so long. I'm just so busy all the time I kept forgetting.**

 **Anyway, when some dude commented a ton of things wrong with my fic, after the initial bout of self doubt I just kinda went "eh, I'm kinda goofing off here anyway."**

 **So please don't expect this fic to be picture perfect. I'm mostly just following a timeline of set events and changing it up slightly with a character, like I did with Ghosts and Magic. I'm not changing everything because I just don't really think Danny's personality would switch around set events to the point of all out chaos. Yet.**

 **Ahem. Anyway, what I** _ **did**_ **get from the criticisms is that Danny doesn't talk enough. Whoops! Danny** _ **should**_ **talk more, sorry. I've got a habit of making fics mostly just trains of thought instead of real interaction. I've actually been practicing dialogue in a couple oneshot fics I've been working on, so you'll probably see those later. Anyway, it's time to finish this chapter. I have serious procrastination issues.**

 **(Seriously I'm really sorry this took so long, I'll release those oneshots really soon)**

The walk to the Royal Scientist's lab was much more arduous than one would think, under normal circumstances, that is. These were not normal circumstances. One could say they were abnormal.

Danny huffed out a breath and wiped the sweat from his brow. This _sucked_. As foolish as it seemed, he really hadn't expected Hotland to be this… Well, _hot._ The fact that he had only just stopped fighting Undyne wasn't helping him at all. And, well, he probably shouldn't have poured out _all_ the water from the water cooler. Hey! It wasn't his fault! He was just so caught up in the moment. Plus, Undyne might've _died_.

Well… The fish warrior hadn't exactly been the nicest to Danny… which was _probably_

(definitely) an understatement. But that didn't mean he had to let her die! That isn't what heroes do, and Danny was so far proud of his reputation of not killing people.

He usually fought ghosts, of course, but that just wasn't the point. The point was… uh...

Man, it was really hot.

"Hey, you okay Danny-boy?" Chara questioned, quirking a brow and smirking in their amusement. "You look half-dead!"

Danny frowned at them, and began struggling to take off his yellow and pink (thankfully unmarred) sweater. "You aren't helping, Chara." he sighed. "What'll this Scientist person even do for us? Or- er- for me?" Danny had met far too many scientists in his lifetime, and about a good half of them had wanted to dissect him. He honestly couldn't tell how this scientist would even _react_ to him. Undyne might've spread word of his abnormalities across the Underground already, for all he knew. Danny grimaced at the thought; the idea of even _more_ monsters taking interest in him wasn't a pleasant idea.

Chara shrugged, looking up and around while they thought of their answer. "Well, if they want to be your ally, that'd be _immeasurably_ helpful, from my experiences with royal scientists. Also, uh, they've got air conditioning?"

Danny's eyes widened, and he walked faster. Cool air sounded _heavenly_ to the sweat-soaked ghost boy right about then.

Thankfully, getting to the royal lab took a lot less time after that, and they arrived within the minute. Chara looked around curiously as the entrance to the lab opened, and was met with…

Darkness. Someone had switched off the light. Great.

Danny squinted around as the door to the lab slid shut and the whole room seemed nearly pitch black, except for a large screen some ten or so feet away. Not willing to run into anything in the dark and fully done with everything at this point, the halfa allowed his eyes to glow green and illuminate the path ahead of him while he attempted to find a light switch. Chara helped as best they could.

"Go left- no _my_ left."

"How am I supposed to know where that is? I can't even see you!"

"Danny, my left would be your _right._ "

"... Oh yeah."

Something wet clattered to the ground and Danny yelled in alarm as a boiling substance spilled onto his feet.

"AGH! What was that?!" He stepped forward and his foot landed on something squishy, which parted under his toes. He stumbled back away from the mess and cast the dim lights from his eyes onto the ground, but wasn't able to discern anything from the gross mess. "What is this? Chara?!"

"Well… we're in a lab, so… that might've been one of the experiments."

"What?!"

Chara's voice sounded grave. "Whatever you stepped in… might've been alive."

Danny had to cut back a cry of horror. Oh _god,_ what has he done?!

Not one moment had passed since that thought when the lights were suddenly switched back on, and Danny was shocked enough to lose his focus on keeping his eyes ghostly. His light blue eyes turned to the source of a bunch of clicking noises, like something with claws had just stumbled back in surprise.

Shockingly, that's exactly what it was. A yellow anthropomorphic lizard monster in a lab coat stared at Danny in shock and awe. She nervously straightened her glasses, and began stuttering out a few words.

"O-oh my gosh! I-I-I didn't think y-you'd get here so fast… I'm not r-ready oh… i-is that… my ramen…?"

Danny looked down to where the Lizard had turned her gaze and his eyes widened. On the floor and on his foot was a puddle of spilled top ramen. Danny glared surreptitiously at Chara as he flicked a few crushed noodles from the bottom of his foot. They only started laughing obnoxiously, with the luxury of nobody hearing them. Danny turned back to the lizard lady, ignoring them.

"Yeah… yeah it is. Um, are you the royal scientist? Doctor…?"

"Alphys!" the scientist yelled, straightening up and ignoring the spilled noodles for the time being. "D-doctor Alphys! I, uh… y-yes, I'm the royal scientist... At your service! H-heheh…" Alphys shifted on her feet nervously.

"I, uh… I-I've been watching you, on your, u-uh… a-adventure. I just want to say that I think… um… y-you're really c-cool!"

Danny blinked. Wait, she saw-

"You're k-kinda like, uh, a-a superhero? With your powers and a-all! It's like you really _are_ an anime c-character… white hair and e-everything…" Alphys muttered, half to herself.

Danny looked down, eyes shifting and mouth halfway open, trying to process all this new information. She knew he was a ghost? Or, well, that he had powers, at least. Watching him… but from where… Danny looked around, and spotted a large screen that had been switched off. That… was pretty conspicuous. He frowned. Why hadn't he seen that before? And did he really look like an anime character? Danny only knew what Sam told him when it came to anime, so he wouldn't know.

"Um, sure, a superhero…" Danny cleared his throat. "You didn't happen to, uh, tell anyone else, did you?"

Alphys looked up, eyes widening. "O-of _course_ not! I w-wouldn't compromise your secret identity like th-that! You seem to, uh, be p-pretty secretive about that, eheh-h-heh. I noticed most of the monsters you've f-fought haven't noticed a th-thing…"

Danny let out a relieved breath. Chara mumbled something about secret identities being overall useless, everyone would always find out anyway. Danny ignored them, and began putting his sweater back on. The room was rather cold compared to the outside.

Alphys suddenly seemed very nervous.

"Um, I actually think I sh-should warn you about-"

 **CRASH!**

Dust floated around the lab as a large gaping hole suddenly blew up from the lab's wall, in between Danny and Alphys. A square metal contraption with two arms and a wheel for a leg came out of the wreckage, its bright pixelated screen flashing all kinds of exciting colors.

"OOOHH YES~" exclaimed the… monster? It seemed to be more of a robot. Danny's eyes slowly widened even more. If Tucker was here, oh boy. He'd have to remember to tell him once he got out of there.

"M-mettaton?!" Alphys stared at the robot in extreme shock. "We- you- wh-what are you doing here?!" she muttered something unintelligible under her breath, and Chara, who was closest to her, squinted their eyes.

"Hello beauties and gentle-beauties, and welcome… TO OUR NEW QUIZ SHOW!" bright lights and game show equipment rolled in from parts around the room, their origins unknown. Confetti rained from the ceiling and an unseen audience cheered their excitement. Danny was both incredibly amused and extremely confused. "Um, Game show? Excuse me, I didn't come here to win any prizes, and I'm definitely not here to…". He remembered what the robot had said this was.

"Uh… take any tests?"

Mettaton chortled mechanically. "Oh darling, this isn't a test. This is a quiz show!"

The audience applauded and very abruptly cut off as the robot raised a glove.

"And on _my_ quiz shows, the only prize you might win or lose… IS YOUR LIFE!"

Danny was pulled straight into an unexpected battle with the robot. A very interestingly catchy tune played around him, and even as Danny was switching into a battle stance, he found his head bobbing along to the beat.

The robot laughed.

"Oh darling, you're hilarious!"

Canned laughter rang around the room.

"There isn't fighting in game shows! Do you imagine what it would be like if a game show contestant suddenly tackled the host and started a fight? No questions would ever be answered! It only works if it's the HOST who attacks! Besides," the robot banged on the top of his cube-like metal body with his fist, causing a hollow metallic bang to echo around the lab. "I'm made of practically impenetrable metal! Oh, what am I saying? It's COMPLETELY impenetrable!"

Mettaton stepped to the side of a very anxiety-stricken looking Alphys, and pulled out a notecard.

"Now, gorgeous, onto our first question! What is the prize for answering correctly?"

Four options materialized in front of Danny.

Money

Mercy

A new car

More questions

Danny paused. "Uh…" he looked to Alphys, who scribbled on a sign and held it up, presenting the letter D. Danny looked at the questions again, and rolled his eyes. Of _course_ it was that one. He picked D.

Alphys gave him a thumbs up and Mettaton raised the hand that wasn't holding notecards in a victorious fist. "Right! Looks like you get it! Now, next question! What is the king's full name?"

Chara floated up to him. "Pick Asgore Dreemurr." they said.

Danny rolled his eyes. "I remembered that."

Alphys looked at him weird, and Danny realized that he had just spoken to what appeared to be thin air. He smiled sheepishly, and picked the right answer.

"Correct! What a _TERRIFIC_ answer! Now, what are robots made of?"

Danny looked at the answers. The only one that made practical sense was 'Metal and Magic', so he chose that one. Mettaton cheered and Danny rolled his eyes. These questions were so _easy._

"Here's another easy one for you!" said Mettaton, and then began reading out an incredibly _complicated_ math problem as fast as he could. Danny stared in horrified shock. " _What?!"_ he looked down at the answers, and still came up with nothing. Danny was beginning to think that he'd rather face Undyne than do this. The clock was ticking so fast!

Seeing his panic and confusion, Alphys read the problem and quickly started scribbling down an answer. Just as she discreetly held up her answer, Chara, who had been staring at the problem the entire time Danny was freaking out, said "32.058 is the answer."

Danny, not even noticing Alphys, gave them a mystified expression and pressed D, the one with that answer. It was right.

As Mettaton praised his success, Danny looked at the options in front of him, debating on whether or not 'cry' was a realistic choice for him at that moment. Instead, he pressed check again, and Mettaton asked another question.

"How many flies are in this jar?"

Danny stared at the jar filled with swarming flies, then glanced at Chara, who shrugged. Danny closed his eyes and shook his head exasperatedly, then looked at Alphys, who was holding up a sign with the correct answer on it. Danny picked 54, and was correct.

"Let's play a memory game! What monster is this?"

A picture of what was clearly half of a Froggit's face materialized before Danny. "Psh, this one's _obvious_ ," Danny scoffed, and he clicked on the answer that said 'Froggit'

"WRONG!" Mettaton sent out a lightning bolt that hit Danny and sapped some of his health. The Froggit face zoomed out to reveal a picture of Mettaton with a Froggit's face on his front. "The answer was Mettaton!"

Danny had recovered from his brief lightning induced panic and now had an incredibly offended look on his face. Chara snickered at him, but the half ghost was too shocked to care.

Well, at least the next question couldn't be as bad…

"Would you smooch a ghost?"

"... _Excuse me?_ "

Danny was immediately more shocked than he had ever been, and that was saying something. Would he… _no._ That was a question nobody in his position should _ever_ be asked. Danny thought back to all of his previous ghost fights and was assaulted by his own thoughts, all because of that question.

Well, at least he could say no, right?

Unfortunately, the universe said no to Danny, first.

All of the answers said 'heck yeah.'

Danny had never before wanted so badly to say 'heck no' to anything before, _ever._

Chara watched amusedly as Danny seemed to be having a mental breakdown about a game show question. Alphys looked confused and Mettaton looked slightly affronted.

"I- uh- I DON'T WANT TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION!"

"Oh darling, I'm sorry, but rules are rules! Either you answer, or you get incinerated!"

Mettaton flicked his fingers and electricity sparked from his fingertips, arching into the air in little lightning bolts. Danny gulped nervously, the electricity casting light into his eyes. He didn't remember seeing that in any game shows on the surface.

"Just say yes!" Chara hissed, looking beyond irritated at Danny's distress.

"I can't answer that," Danny replied, in a harsh whisper. "Do you have any idea what that'd do to my reputation?!"

"You're in the Underground! Why does that matter?!"

"Tick tock, little human!"

Danny's head whipped up in a sudden outrage. "Oh come on! It's not like you don't already know what I'll have to say! The only options you put down are 'heck yeah!'"

"CORRECT! Great answer!"

… What.

"What?" Danny paused. "... You're kidding me."

Mettaton gave a metallic chuckle. "Of course not, gorgeous! This isn't a comedy show! Next question!"

"NO! No more questions!" Danny stomped his foot on the ground and held a fist threateningly in front of his face. "Just fight me already!"

He sure did look very threatening right then, with his pink and yellow too-big sweater, pink tutu and ballet slipper, and red bow. What really completed the outfit was the dirt covering it in splotches all over his body. The half ghost looked something approximating to a fairy princess who also doubled as a garbage truck.

Needless to say, he looked pathetic and sad, and everyone in the room noticed.

Mettaton's screen flashed a few irritated colors, and he threw his arms up. "... And that's that for today's show! Tune in next time, beauties!"

And with that, Mettaton crashed through the wall again. Danny, newly offended and completely oblivious to the impression his appearance had made, ran over to the wall and began yelling at the robotic monster who was already long gone. Chara had been holding their face in their hands for about five minutes at that point, and Alphys just looked very confused and slightly exasperated.

"And _THAT'S_ why I hate robots! So _there!_ "

Danny huffed, and turned to Alphys. "So can you tell me exactly what just happened?!"

Alphys jumped, looking flustered. "U-uh… well, th-that's um… kind of… m-my fault? Uh, I made M-Mettaton when we needed m-more humans souls, but… well, I sort of started rooting f-for you once I saw you on th-the screen! You're like a superhero… So, uh, well, I tried rewiring Mettaton to get him to s-stop, but… n-now he has an uncontrollable taste for human blood?"

Danny's mouth was gaping slightly. How does someone mess up _that_ badly.

Well… actually, nevermind. He wasn't really one to talk.

"But d-don't worry! I'll help you!"

Alphys then proceeded to fervently reassure Danny of her ability to help him, and upon seeing the phone he had with him, she immediately went to go upgrade it to a newer model.

Once he saw the new model, Danny was blown away.

"What're all these apps?" Danny said, poking at the phone screen. "Are these games? 'Monster racers?' Huh… Tucker'd be so thrilled to see this…"

He put the phone in his pocket, and looked up to ask Alphys a question… but she wasn't there. Danny raised an eyebrow.

"She went to the bathroom while you were ogling the phone, dummy."

Danny looked at Chara with an exasperated expression. "Well then, might as well continue now that the stupid robot thing is gone."

As they began walking to the lab's exit, Chara scoffed. "I don't know why _you're_ so offended, _I'm_ a full ghost and I wasn't even bothered by him at all!" Chara shifted their eyes and pursed their lips a moment, as if thinking of something.

Danny rolled his eyes and muttered something about Chara not understanding. "Whatever," he sighed. "As long as I don't see him again, I'll be happy."

Danny should have realized that if the universe hadn't let him be happy before, it certainly wasn't starting now. They opened the door to Hotland, and started on the next part of their journey.

...

 **I know, I know, we didn't get to see the last question. Let's just say that if that happened everyone in the room would've immediately died from embarrassment (except for Chara and Mettaton, who would be laughing) and Mettaton couldn't risk a real fight happening right at that moment. It wasn't his plan, and Danny has a tendency to mess up other people's plans.**

 **I'm seriously so sorry this took so long, I can't stop distracting myself with writing other fics, reading them, and participating in tons of extracurricular activities. I'm in a play! Well, my voice is. I play a robot voice.**

 **Hey, I've got a challenge for you. Send me a robot/computer joke of your own creation (please make it your own!) and I'll give you a shout out in the next chapter. I'm planning on writing down some jokes to say over the intercom during the play's intermission time. If you make me laugh I'll add yours! Let's get creative!**

 **Well, until next time! Remember to message me if you have any story questions or if you pick up any posting errors!**

 **Flames will be used cook Danny while he walks through Hotland, the poor ice ghostie.**


	11. Ovens and Lava and Pans, Oh My!

**AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. Okay so hi I'm back. So I freaking lost the chapter in my seemingly endless google drive and so here I am rewriting this author's note. Also, my google drive is kind of hilarious at this point? I'm looking through it and coming across the weirdest stuff that I completely forgot about. There's a document with a few paragraphs detailing a short scenario of a player trying to make Flowey less angry by giving him a snickers. I came across one document where all it is is just the letter A and that's it. Whoa I was just opening different files and I accidentally opened this one. Fileception?  
Maybe I just hallucinated starting this chapter because it's literally nowhere. Okay anyway shout out to Kittling, Voltaradragoness, Ghostboy1225, and one very special Guest for teaching me some great computer jokes! Thanks you guys! They were all very clever!**

 **I really hope that I don't disappoint anyone with this chapter because I'm half dead at this point I've been writing this fic for SO LONG IT'S BEEN OVER A YEAR (though don't get me wrong, the response to this was incredible and I'm really proud of this story despite the fact that I'm always horrible at updating things.)**

 **I think you can visibly see where I just kind of starting goofing off with my writing… I'm not really even following all the dialogue at this point, I think the story's been changed enough for there to be some different dialogue choices, right? Also, rewriting dialogue kills me deep inside.  
Why is Danny ruining everything **

...

Chara and Danny walked down Hotland's first pathway, Danny looking incredibly focused on what he was saying, and Chara looking incredibly disinterested about what Danny was saying.

"So anyway," said Danny, smiling happily. "As I was saying about the big bang-"

Suddenly, the space-focused discussion was halted by a happy little tune coming from Danny's newly updated phone. He brought the device up to his face and turned it on, one eyebrow raised.  
"Huh, it looks like Alphys signed me up for some underground social network?"

Chara frowned. "... Social network? I don't remember there being one of those when in the Underground when I was alive…"

"Get with the times, Chara." Danny opened up Alphys' status update while steadfastly ignoring Chara sticking their tongue out at him. He internally scoffed. How childish.

'I'm watching the human in Hotland, I think he's talking to himself about space? I can't hear him very well… it's kind of endearing. ^-^'

Danny's eyes widened. Chara, who was looking over his shoulder, smirked victoriously, as if they had won some unseen argument. Danny glared in front of him, unwilling to actually talk to Chara anymore, and turned his phone off. After that, he decided to just continue walking and leave the space conversation for a time when there wasn't hidden cameras, which… to be perfectly honest, was probably never.

After taking just a few more steps, Danny was faced with what seemed like a big dilemma. A large puzzle of air vents was laid out before him. The air from the vents gust forth like wind, and was strong enough to lift the weight of a human being across the short gaps in between each vent.

Danny and Chara stared at the puzzle.

Chara cleared their throat.

"So, uh, you know we can just fly across, right?"

Danny laughed, and then whispered: "that's exactly what I was thinking… but I kind of want to try it first."

Chara shrugged. "Whatever floats your ghost."

"Whatever… my what? Oh, nevermind."

Danny edged close to the first vent, somewhat tentative about finding out what vent-travel was like. He reached out a foot, and as soon as it touched the vent, the rest of his leg went skyrocketing forward, pulling him off of his other leg and causing him to land on his backside… on the vent.

The halfa only had half of a second to say "whoops," before he was propelled through the air by superheated wind. He spun through the air gracelessly, then landed on the other side in a sad pile of ghost boy.

" _OW!"_ he said, unneeding of further explanation. He sat up, indignation written all over his face. Chara, after they finished laughing, floated over with absolutely no problem whatsoever, a smile stretching their face in half.

"If I had a scoreboard, I'd give you an 8, Danny. I took off two because your landing wasn't as spectacular as I'd expected of you. Boo."

Danny stood up and muttered under his breath loud enough for Chara to hear him. "Thank you, Chara, for your undying support in my time of need."

"You are very welcome."

Danny rolled his eyes. With no prompting needed, he muttered his catchphrase (just for fun) and transformed into his more ghostly self. He and Chara were then one in the same, if you discounted the superpowers, tangibility, and minor differences in liveliness- meaning of course that one of them was in fact, super dead. And that was _not_ a superpower.

Just as soon as they began flying over the puzzle, a glint of light caused Danny to turn and look to his left. There, on one of the vented islands, was a lone frying pan. Danny, being himself, couldn't leave such a useful trinket behind. He just felt, deep down in his core, that he would need it later…

Also, he needed something threatening to balance out his increasingly pink choices in attire. Chara watched Danny pick it up and float back over to them with a raised eyebrow and a foot tapping at the air impatiently. They both quickly flew to the other side of the puzzle, and once Danny had transformed back, the two went on their merry way.

Unfortunately, their merry way was unceremoniously interrupted by a low flying airplane… monster. Danny was sucked into a battle before he even knew what hit him, that being a literal sentient flying aircraft with what could be loosely described as a blushing face.

"That's a Tsundereplane," said Chara, more or less unappreciative of the incredible masterpiece of words they had just spoken forth.

Danny had to inhale sharply to avoid dying a second time right then and there.

"A what," he said, unquestioningly. The Tsundereplane blushed.

This was already undoubtedly a good battle.

"I-it's not like I l-like you or anything!" the Tsundereplane zoomed, or whatever sound you could say an airplane makes. Perhaps was a _floom_? Or a _vrrrrr._

Danny was having a very tough time dodging miniature flying planes while desperately trying not to laugh at his situation. Honestly, in his mind, an encounter with a sentient anime plane almost made his Underground experience entirely worth it, even if he had to suffer a battle surrounded by lava.

After dodging bullet planes and hitting the friendly-looking green ones, Danny was finished with the battle. He had never seen a plane blush so much. He didn't really know how to feel about that.

Chara had a deadpan expression on. "Well, that was… interesting."

Danny's grin stretched from ear to ear. "I'm so confused and so, so happy right now."

Chara muttered under their breath. "How does that monster even work? Were airplanes even a thing when monsters were on the surface? Is it a shapeshifting monster that really likes anime, or-?"

"No time to puzzle on that, Chara, we've got to _jet._ "

"Oh noooo… no."

And with that, the two continued walking/floating across Hotland. After about two more minutes of travel, Danny began really feeling the heat. Just as he was about to begin complaining, he realized something.

"Wait… there aren't even any monsters near here. Can't I just fly?"

"I was going to tell you that, but I wanted to see how long it would take you to figure it out by yourself!"

"Chara, did I ever tell you how much I enjoy having you around?" Danny rolled his eyes and wiped the sweat off of his forehead. "I'd better go invisible, though; there's got to be more monsters or anime airplanes or whatever around here. We better fly fast, so I don't fall out of the air above lava or something."

Chara nodded and Danny transformed once more, turning invisible and then taking to the air. Danny, though invisible, was not intangible, and unthinkingly grabbed Chara's hand to drag them across Hotland with him. Chara, having understandably not expected that, had a look of shock on their face as they were flown around Hotland in search of any telltale exits or entrances.

After flying over some monsters and puzzles (that may or may have been important), Danny flew into a dark room and straight into a wall.

"OW! WHY?!"

Danny's phone then rang, and Danny fumbled around in the dark with two hands as he landed on the ground. The ring of light he used to turn back human lit up his clothes long enough for him to find the device.

"U-uh, Danny?" Alphys' voice sounded clearly from the phone's speaker. "Hi! I'm- um- you move really f-fast, don't you? Eheheh… um, I see you're in a dark room? I can hack into the l-lights, just a second…"

The lights flickered on seconds later, and surrounded the two ghost children was… a cooking show?

"O-oh no…"

"OH YES!"

Canned applause and peppy music blared from strategically set speakers around the room designed to look like a kitchen, and Mettaton wheeled over to Danny, microphone in hand.

"WELCOME EVERYONE, TO MY BRAND NEW HIT SHOW, COOKING WITH A KILLER ROBOT!"

"How can it be a hit if it's brand new?!" Danny glared at the robot, incredibly unimpressed with this turn of events.

"OH SILLY DARLING, EVERY SHOW IS A HIT IF IT'S THE ONLY THING ON TV!" Metatton could not, in fact, wink, but his screens blinked in a way that approximated to about that, technically speaking.

Danny and Chara rolled their eyes at the same time. Chara, squinting, reached out to poke Danny's shoulder, and got his attention.

"You know," they said, drawing out their words. "You don't really have to cook with him, right?"

Danny's eyes suddenly lit up with mischief. "Right… I don't."

"NOW HUMAN, IF YOU COULD STOP TALKING TO YOURSELF AND STEP OVER HERE, WE CAN-"

"Gee Metattan, but I don't know anything about baking!"

"... THAT'S ALRIGHT, DARLING! LUCKILY FOR YOU, I, _METTATON,_ DECIDED THAT TODAY, WE'RE MAKING A CLASSIC… CAKE! PREHEAT YOUR OVENS, BEAUTIES! OUR INGREDIENTS ARE-"

Danny raised his hand. "I have a question."

"YES, WHAT IS IT?"

"Mettatrain-"

"METATTON."

"Mettatram, I'm very confused, do we have a built in oven, or will you be doubling as one this evening?"

Mettaton somehow managed to look deeply offended, despite not having a face. "SWEETHEART, I'M NOT AN OVEN, I'M A STAR!"

"I mean, stars can be pretty hot."

"... THANK YOU?"

"Wait, no, that backfired-"

" **ANYWAY,** THE INGREDIENTS WE'LL BE NEEDING FOR OUR CAKE ARE MILK, SUGAR, AND EGGS! OUR HELPFUL HUMAN HERE WILL BE GETTING US THE INGREDIENTS-"

"I'll what?"

"-FROM THE BACK COUNTER, RIGHT BEHIND ME! GIVE HIM A HAND!"

Very obviously fake applause sounded from a speaker somewhere, with Metatton himself overpowering the sound with the loud, metallic banging of his hands. This was not the type of hand Danny would have wanted, it not being helpful even a little bit.

Danny deadpanned, and looked at the back counter. "Why can't you just get them yourself? I'm not getting payed for this, am I?"

Chara smiled. They grow up so fast.

"YOU'RE GETTING PAYED WITH THE SATISFACTION OF NOT EMBARRASSING YOURSELF ON LIVE TELEVISION, SWEETY!"

"Fair enough." Danny walked over to the back counter, and while looking at the sugar, decided on his next course of action. He picked up the sugar, then very subtly and quickly turned his hands intangible. The sugar bag crashed to the floor, spilling all over the tile what _could_ have been Powerpuff Girl guts if they were actually just made from sugar and nothing else.

Metatton stared blankly at the sugary remains. "... THAT'S PERFECTLY FINE! NOW THIS CAKE WILL BE DELICIOUS AND FAT FREE! GOOD JOB, DARLING!"

Danny frowned. He stepped over to the eggs, and (while keeping perfect eye contact with Metatton) he swiped them off of the counter and onto the floor. "Oopsie daisy, Mettamato. **Oopsie daisy.** "  
One might ask, "was this for the 'would you smooch a ghost,' question?"  
Yes. It was.

Metatton did not sign up for this. If he had a face, he would most certainly be making a very irritated expression directed towards a certain halfa. As it was, he just very quietly beeped and booped some expletives in morse code. Danny shrugged as innocently as possible.

Back in Snowdin, in a house owned by two skeletons, one was watching the cooking show on TV while sitting on the floor. "heh," he said. He then drank an entire bottle of ketchup.

"SANS?" Yelled Papyrus from the kitchen, surrounded by broken eggs. "NOT TO DOUBT METATTON, BECAUSE I WOULD NEVER DO THAT, BUT DO YOU THINK THIS IS ACTUALLY HOW YOU MAKE A CAKE?"

"heheh."

Danny was making a 'what can you do?' expression at the camera, and this snapped Mettaton out of his brief personal self pity session.

"ALRIGHT! WELL, SINCE ALL WE HAVE LEFT IS MILK, I GUESS WE'LL HAVE TO MAKE A HEALTHY AND DELICIOUS ALTERNATIVE TO CAKE! HEAT UP YOUR FRYING PANS, BECAUSE NOW WE'LL BE MAKING… FRIED HUMAN SOUL! WITH A SIDE OF MILK."

"... I feel like the milk part could've been cut out of that statement, but alright… wait, did you just call me delicious?! And why a frying pan? I can't fit in a pan! I just can't!"

"OH? WOULD YOU RATHER WE MAKE IT WITH SOMETHING OTHER THAN YOUR SOUL?"

"I mean OBVIOUSLY YES?"

At that point, Alphys decided to call.  
"U-um… so, I mean… sorry, uh, just a little thrown off-"  
Alphys could be heard clearing her throat, and Danny raised an eyebrow.

"You could use… s… soy human meat? W-wait, did I- is that a thing? I'm sorry-"

"GREAT IDEA, DOCTOR ALPHYS! IN FACT, APROPOS TO THAT STATEMENT, WE JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE A BIT OF A CHALLENGE SET UP FOR THE HUMAN!"

"Oh man, I do love being challenged."

Chara redundantly whispered to Danny: "Don't you think you're laying it on a little thick?"

Danny turned to look at them slowly, and very intensely shook his head. No. Never. It could be imagined that any monsters still watching the show at that point would be incredibly confused by that action, because, yes, this was all live on television. Though, fortunately, most of them were already beyond that emotion by then.

Metatton would have passive aggressively inhaled, had he a nose. "YOUR CHALLENGE IS TO GO GRAB THAT CAN OF MTT-BRAND ALWAYS-CONVENIENT-HUMAN-SOUL-FLAVOR-SUBSTITUTE ON THE COUNTER OVER THERE!"  
He pointed towards a counter that was very inconspicuously outside of the kitchen and in a completely different (and oherwise empty) hallway.

"... Nice."

Danny walked over to the counter with Chara floating behind him, both of them of course not expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen, as that would be very unexpected and unprecedented, and things like that never happened to them ever.

As soon as Danny reached the counter, it began extending upwards like a crane with a very, very long neck, until it reached almost to the top of the giant cavern of the Underground. Danny exhaled for a very long time.

"Okay. Alright. Fine, okay."

Metatton seemed very pleased with himself. "SWEETHEART, DID YOU THINK IT'D BE THAT EASY? OF COURSE NOT! IT'S A CHALLENGE AFTER ALL! REMEMBER, OUR SHOW HAS A TIME SLOT, SO TO GET THAT MTT BRAND SUBSTITUTE, YOU'LL HAVE TO MAKE IT TO THE TOP OF THAT TOWER IN LESS THAN ONE MINUTE!"

Alphys' voice sounded from wherever she was calling from again. "D-don't worry, Danny! I've got just the thin-"

"Did it."

There was silence. Danny, after moving off camera for a small amount of time, had somehow managed to get to the top of the ginormous tower in not only less than a minute, but less than half of one. Chara snorted. Danny winked, which seemed sort of out of context to literally everyone else.

"Uh… r-right, okay…"

Metatton was absolutely silent. His screen was grey and quiet. Then, he lifted his microphone to his mouth again and his voice sounded just as cheery as before.  
"THAT'S ALL FOR TODAY'S EPISODE, BEAUTIES! SEE YOU NEXT TIME! STAY BEAUTIFUL~!"

He then gracefully slid off the set, into the shadows.

" **TOODLES...** "

Danny and Chara watched him go, Danny with mild trepidation, and Chara with passionate indifference. Then, Danny's phone rang, and he was just about startled out of his tutu.

"G-good job, team! Or, uh, good job, Danny! H-ha, ha, you were so cool! And when you dropped the eggs, c-completely unexpected!"

"Uh, huhuh, yeah, it was pretty _egg_ ceptional, am I right?"

"... Well, you better get going now, bye!"

 _CLICK!_

Danny stared at the phone screen. "Was it really that… _rotten_ of a joke?"

Chara stared at him blankly. "Danny, there's already enough puns in the Underground. Any outside variables contributing to the amount of puns already here could cause inflation."

"... Would it be… eggscrutia-"

"Bye." Chara started walking down the path at a brisk pace. Danny jogged after them with a desperate pun-induced smile on his face.

"Wait! Are you really that serious about puns? Chara!"

Chara's head turned slowly and calculatively. "I am serious when the situation is dire, Danny. Making too many puns in the Underground could be…. Whisky."

Danny stopped in the middle of the path. "What… why… why didn't I think of that one…"

"Because you never think!" Chara sped down the road as fast as they could walk, which was pretty fast. Probably because they were a ghost. Danny ran after them; he would _not_ be beaten at a pun battle, even if yolks in the underground were more well versed at them than he.

This was obviously the most important battle he was ever going to have…

…

 **I had to look up birds with extendy necks to find a way to describe the counter. I forgot that cranes existed. Hey, so… this chapter took 1 thousand entire years and I'm really really sorry about that, I'm writing this instead of homework as well so please don't yell at me. I'M REALLY VERY SORRY. I'm not sure if this chapter is good or not, because yadda yadda I can never tell, etc. Oh hey, also I got real into a new show lately, it's called Wander Over Yonder. I tried listening to some of it's songs while writing this and it didn't work because instead of writing the actual paragraph I just kept yell-typing the song really messily. I recommend this show to you, it will fill the sad Phantom-less hole in your heart, and also it's just really good.  
Anyway, cartoon matters aside, I want to thank everyone for continuing to follow this story even though I suck. Every time this got a new follow and/or favorite I smiled and thought "aw jeez I really need to write that chapter!" And it happene t. So thanks so much! Remember, I don't abandon stories as long as one person is enjoying them along with me, and there is definitely at least one person reading this story. Remember, please tell me if you think something wrong happened to the chapter (I copypaste the whole thing from google docs every time) and I'll see you all next time! Love youuuu!**

 **Flames will be used to heat a Danny-sized frying pan for the views**


	12. What is Danny Even Wearing at This Point

**Shoot, dude, a lot of STUFF happened. But the most important thing is that I can't remember how many socks Danny has, so I'm going to remedy that at the beginning of this chapter.**

…

Danny found some socks.  
"Huh," he said, as he bent down to pick them up. "That's convenient."

Chara blew a lock of translucent hair out of their face, and took in their surroundings with narrowed eyes. They seemed distracted, and spoke with a voice that was uncharacteristically soft. "You know, I think you're almost out of this place by now."

Danny looked up from pulling on his socks, having to wake up from the blissful happiness induced by a cotton-fiber shelter for his poor, dirty feet (although wearing a sock under his single ballet slipper was already proving to be a struggle). "Huh?"  
Chara touched down on the ground, without a whisper of noise.

"I'm just saying, I think you're close to actually meeting Asgore... Um, the king? You got here so fast, I am… only just realizing that." Their voice began to slow at the end of the statement, and they quickly raked a hand through their hair and tilted their head away from Danny. He stared at them for a moment, then stood up and dusted his pants (and tutu) off, letting a shower of red sand rain onto the ground. He walked over to them and held out a hand, which Chara stared at quizzically.

"I feel tired, do you wanna walk a bit slower for awhile?"

He had a reserved smile on his face, and his shoulders drooped visibly. It wasn't that he was lying about feeling tired, especially in the hot and dry weather or hotland, but the gesture may have had more meaning to it.

Chara looked at Danny with eyebrows scrunched together, then at his hand, and tentatively raised their own. They then brought it down in a flash and slapped his hand away. "You're such a baby! Yeah, I guess we can go slower, since I guess Hotland is already melting your dumb jelly-legs," their voice was shaking, but they were laughing, with a smile that looked genuine. "Lead away, Mr. tutu."

Danny smiled crookedly and turned back towards the path. The two went noticeably slower, but only managed about ten steps before Danny took his eyes back up from the path and opened his big mouth. "How could you even tell how close we are? I mean, you'd point out any landmarks to me if you saw one, right? You don't wanna ruin my underground… vacation… whoa."

The two had drifted out into what seemed like the most massive area in the Underground. The sandy and rocky path acted as an island in an ocean of lava. Far away from them, imposing and grand and sticking out of the water like a castle, was the Underground's metal core. Danny let out his breath in one exhale, the glowing red magma all around them left his eyes dried out, but he couldn't help but keep them as wide as dinner plates.  
"What is that thing…?"

The phone Alphys had given him chimed, and he lifted it up to his ear without tearing his gaze away from the sight ahead of him.

Strangely enough, the phone only gave off static.

Chara cleared their throat, unnecessarily.  
"That's the Core, it's supposed to supply power to the whole Underground, but it's… pretty new, I think. At least, it wasn't working yet when I saw it last."

Danny whistled. "Monsters work fast." Chara let out a breath, and took one in just as fast.

"Not… really. It's been awhile since I've, well…"

They looked at the ground, then let out an agitated huff. "Listen, we're not going to get very far from just standing here and ogling like idiots! Do you want to get out of here or not?!"

Danny mumbled something incomprehensible.

"What?!"

He cleared his throat. "Did you, uh… You don't have to tell me, but, all this stuff about human souls… did you- were you... murdered, down here? For your soul? It had to have been a long time ago… is that why you're trying to help me get out of here?"

Chara looked shell-shocked. There was a moment of silence.  
"Don't…. You know, it's rude to ask how someone died."

Danny gave a brief smirk. "I'll share mine if you share your's."

Chara glared. They stomped past him and down the path. Danny gained a slightly guilty expression. "Okay, okay, touchy subject, I get it…" He didn't realize that they'd still feel upset at the memory of their death, since it had apparently been so many years ago. But then again, Danny didn't spend a lot of time considering how ghosts had actually died. As he started walking again, he began to gain an intense expression of thought. Maybe he _should_ start wondering what happened to the ghosts he met… there had to be more to their stories, after all.

He looked up, and Chara was glaring at him, tapping an arm impatiently with their index finger. He walked a bit faster to catch up.

Neither of them spoke until they reached the end of the path.

Danny cleared his throat. "I, uh, didn't mean to offend you by the way, you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to."  
Chara didn't reply, but their brow dipped a little more, tightening into a vaguely fitful expression. Danny decided to leave it at that.

As the two reached an elevator and stepped inside, Danny began to feel like he was… forgetting something. The doors closed and smooth jazz started playing at low volume. It made the situation way more awkward than it had to be. The doors opened and the two stepped out into some location that seemed almost twice as comically-inclined as the area before. Almost immediately after touching his hot sock to the ground, Danny was being verbally attacked by a small flame-creature only two feet away from the elevator door.

"HEH. I'm HEATS FLAMESMAN. Remember my name!"

Nothing else was said. Danny lifted his hands up and widened his eyes, and backed away into the next area. This one was full of people, which was a nice change. Sitting in a sentry-station about 10 feet away was none other than Sans, who was in the midst of selling a hot dog to what looked like a wingless bird wearing a pink dress. Danny nodded. He was getting used to this.

"hey buddy, what's up? wanna buy a hot dog? it's only 30G."

Danny squinted at him. On second thought, there were many things wrong with this situation. The skeleton seemed to raise an eyebrow, which was confusing in of itself. "Why… you- this shack has snow on it. We are _surrounded_ by lava." He crossed his arms over his chest. He was not over the fact that there was a stringent possibility the short skeleton had stolen his other sock way back when. Sans shrugged, carefree as always.

"what can i say, i thought it looked pretty cool."

Danny exhaled through his nose. So that's how it's gonna be, huh? He accepted this challenge. Not that he even knew what the challenge was. He shoved a hand in his pocket and took out some of the gold that had been thrown at him after his various monster battles. He… still didn't really understand how monster battles worked, but free money was pretty cool. Danny used one hand to slam a ton of gold on the counter ( _way_ more gold than he needed to buy even _five_ hot dogs), and another to point at Sans, all while staring at him with ghoulish intensity.

Sans apparently knew what that meant, having apparently dealt with stupid teenagers before, so he just started… _producing_ hot dogs from somewhere under the counter. Chara was looking between the two of them with a strange expression, and Sans began handing hot dogs to Danny until his arms were full of them. His permanent smile grew.

"whoa buddy, it looks like your hands are full. i'll just…"  
He began placing 'dogs on Danny's head. Danny was beginning to show some nerve in regards to the situation. Chara's expression was beginning to lessen into something approaching an amused grimace.  
By the time Danny decided to say something, there was a towering pile of steaming 'dogs on top of his head. His confusion was palpable as to how the dog pile still stood, knowing that he wasn't exactly what you could call a _well-balanced_ individual. If anything, he was the opposite.

He waved his hands in a frantic motion. "OKAY, OKAY, I THINK THAT'S ENOUGH."

"but you gave me way more money than 25 'dogs' worth, i think you deserve at least 4 more."

"NOPE!"  
Danny took what could be described as the most hesitant step backwards ever made in human history. This did not save him. An avalanche of hot-dogs rained down onto the devastated halfa. It was like confetti, if it was sad and made of meat. The somber scene only lasted for a single second before Chara started cackling like a maniac. They hugged their middle and floated upwards in the air, while Danny looked at them with a half-dismayed and half-victorious expression. It was a sight. Sans' eyes flickered for a moment, but it went unnoticed.

As Chara's giggles began to die down, they looked up at Danny and grinned with darkened eyes. "You're such an idiot."

Danny smiled nervously, still standing in the middle of his hot-dog massacre.

He knew that.

Unfortunately, the good mood wasn't destined to last.

Sans waved at the two as they walked away from the area and continued along their path. It wasn't long until Danny got a notification from his phone. Further inspection revealed that Alphys had posted a photo, captioned "Hot date with the girlfriend!"  
It was a photo of an anime figurine next to a bowl of instant ramen. Danny raised his eyebrows.

"Wow, that's like something Tucker would post." He tried to scroll down, but was immediately assaulted with another notification, this time from Papyrus. He had apparently assumed that now was the time to post "hot pics," and had sent a photo of him wearing sunglasses in front of a mirror, captioned "HERE IS ME AND MY COOL FRIEND." He had big paper biceps glued onto his flexing arms, which were also wearing sunglasses. A bit of a distance behind Danny was the sound of another notification, as Sans apparently got the post at the same time.  
Danny grinned. Papyrus really did seem like a cool guy, even if he was kind of… overwhelming, at first. The ghost-boy was suddenly reminded of how he didn't feel he had spent enough time with the guy. He gained a pensive expression, which caught Chara's attention.

"Uh, are you alright? You look like your boyfriend just broke up with you."

Danny choked.

"What?! No! I was just thinking, we haven't seen Papyrus for awhile. Do you think we should call him or something?"

Chara raised an eyebrow. "Why…? It's not like you've known him for very long."

"I know! He just seems lonely." That, and Danny missed the guy's weird antics. Plus, the heat of Hotland was really starting to get to him. He'd noticed he was dragging his feet a bit more.

Suddenly, as if to punctuate that thought, a monster that looked like an icecream cone on fire hopped over to Danny and initiated a battle.

Danny looked around as the world unexpectedly drained of color. "Oh, what? Come on!"

Pyrope was grinning madly though their flaming visage. "Is it cold in here?"

"No! It isn't! I was seriously considering just going to somewhere way colder, actually!"

As anyone reasonably would, Pyrope began chucking bombs at the startled boy. Danny yelped and dodged away from the blasts, but he was cutting it pretty close. Chara didn't even bother to move, immune as they were to the bombs. They tapped their foot impatiently.

"You know, you can probably just 'go ghost' right about now, I mean, I don't think anyone should really care at this point."

Danny took the time to glare at Chara before he ducked under a bomb. He spoke in a harsh whisper. "Listen, there are certain people I _don't_ want to show my ghost half to. I need people to underestimate me if I want to get out of here, you never know how powerful some people can be! Remember Undyne?"

Chara rolled their eyes, but didn't say anything else. Of course they remembered Undyne. Danny dodged to the right of the last bomb, and considered his options. He could try and use his ice powers to stop the person, but they were made of fire, and Danny didn't know what the line was between hurting the monster and killing them. He didn't want to accidentally kill some poor monster, even the ones who threw bombs at him. So, he considered the options chosen for him.

There was one that stood out. "Heat up."  
Oh boy. That sounded absolutely terrible. But it was the only other option besides "invite," and Danny didn't even know what that meant, so it wasn't really even an option.

Well, he might as well try anyway.

"Hey, um… guy, my pal, good… fire-friend? Do you want to… come to a party? I don't know. This is me… inviting you."

Pyrope shifted uncomfortably. Danny sighed. "Yeah, okay, I don't really know what that was either. Is there anything you actually wanted from me?"

The flames on Pyrope's head grew and shrank, but their expression didn't change. Then, it was back to bomb-chucking.

Danny blinked at the flames slowly, and then spent the next three seconds considering a plan. If this monster wanted the room to be hotter, Danny could conceivably heat the place up, then go ghost as soon as they left, and make his way to Snowdin. He could get there in minutes, it was no sweat. Besides, a little extra heat never killed anybody.

Well… it had, technically, but Danny had faith in his ability to withstand the heat. At least, long enough to escape the battle without anybody getting seriously hurt.  
It wasn't lost on the halfa that he was capable of running away from the battle, but he didn't exactly have a history of doing that when there was any other option. This monster wasn't a ghost wrecking his hometown, but it was more or less the same thing… kind of.

Danny bet against death and turned up the thermostat. It was difficult to discern exactly how, but he did. Chara looked confused.

"Uh, Danny? Did you just… _actively_ make the room _hotter?_ "

"Yep."

"... _Why?_ "

"Because I'm a very sensible person, Chara. I like to… think about other people's needs, and stuff." Danny was swaying on his feet already. Pyrope looked excited, and voiced their happiness while tossing more bombs at Danny, which he dodged with slightly increased difficulty. Pyrope wanted more heat. Danny, almost taking this as a challenge, obliged. The heat waves were making his vision kind of blurry, and his chest a bit floaty, but he was _fine._ Not worried at all.  
Chara floated over to Danny, and punched his shoulder, their expression was tightened up again, and it looked like they were trying to hold something back.

"Seriously? What are you- you're going to end up killing yourself! You do realize that there are at _least_ three other options for you to pick?"

Danny stumbled out of the way of another blast, and closed his eyes at the wave of heat coming off of it. He licked his dry lips before replying. "I'm not gonna… _cool down_ some fire person for no reason, their flame part is their _whole entire head_ , that'd kill them or something. Listen, I fight ghosts, I'm not really used to this sort of thing, but I'm pretty sure that this is the only way, Chara!"

"No, it's not! You could just run away! You can't even be sure that any more heat would kill you! Then what would you do?!" They rose further off of the ground voice steadily increasing in volume.

Danny frowned, and didn't reply. Chara blew air out through their nose, then grabbed his shoulders, pulling him back and away from the battle.

"Hey!"

"You're seriously so stupid, I'm not just going to watch you melt into a sad puddle of bull-headedness." They yanked backwards a few more times, and Danny, in his heat-exhausted state, could only do so much to pull away. Color filled the world again as they exited the battle, and it gave Danny a new perspective on how much of his world was swirling and swaying around him.

"Oh."

" _Yeah,_ 'oh.'"

Danny yanked himself out of Chara's grip once they were far enough away from the heat of the battle, and stumbled without help back down the path, his vision was still blurry, and he was getting hot and cold flashes every now and then, which was concerning. Pyrope was apparently happy enough not to follow the two, so they got no resistance as they continued retracing their steps. They passed by Sans' hot-dog stand without being stopped, as the skeleton just stared, permanent smile unchanging. It was only kind of creepy.

They got all the way to the elevator, and Danny waved at the little fire-creature standing in front of it. "Hi, uh…" His head was still fuzzy, but the little guy had made quite the impression. "Heats Flamesman?"

The fire person gained the most exaggeratedly shocked expression Danny had ever seen, and he stumbled into the elevator if only to get away from the situation.

Danny sighed with relief; it was much cooler in the elevator than it was outside, and his head was starting to clear. It was just beginning to dawn on him exactly how stupid he'd allowed the situation to get back there, and he looked down at Chara with an expression tinted with guilt.

"Uh… okay, I can admit that I got a bit… heated, back there-"

Chara held up a hand. "Save your puns, I'm not willing to _play around_ with this subject."  
They crossed their arms and looked down, refusing to make eye contact.  
"Do you enjoy just… endangering yourself on purpose? Are you _trying_ to destroy yourself? Because I've been there before and trust me, it's not fun!"  
Their voice started out small, but quickly gained volume. They paced back and forth, though their feet made no sound on the hard floor. "I learned a long time ago that… hesitating- just- _increasing the odds against you_ in battle only gets you killed! Not only that, but it gets you killed in a stupid, _preventable_ way. You either run away or you _fight_ , you can't just stand there and let yourself get pummelled into the ground for no reason! You can't just- _let_ yourself deteriorate, it doesn't help anyone, Danny! Not the monsters, not your friends, your family, not the- not _you_ , Danny. What were you… even thinking…"

It seemed that Chara was barely even talking about Danny at that point. They gasped in a breath and let it out slowly. "I don't want to just… stand on the sidelines and watch you fall to pieces, okay? You were just stumbling around like an idiot, you looked like you were _melting._ "

Danny touched his hand to his forehead. It was slick with sweat, and he realized that he probably looked pale as death right then, no pun intended. What seemed like a ridiculous, lightly risky decision came into perspective when he realized how much the heat could affect him. How much he _knew_ it could affect him. Danny ran a hand through his hair, sheepish.

"Man, I'm sorry, Chara. I guess the stress is kind of… getting to me. I think _Hotland_ is getting to me."

The Underground had not been kind to him so far. Danny thought that maybe, he was beginning to lose himself a bit. He needed to get back to his family and friends, and to the town he desperately wanted to protect, but how could he do that if he could barely get past his own blockade of bull-headedness? If the heat didn't kill him, his stubborn nature probably would. There may not have been much for him to do about that, except…

"Maybe… we should just, take a break for a bit?"

Chara didn't look up from the floor, but they tilted their head a bit. Danny rubbed an arm, and decided to clarify.  
"A break from Hotland, I mean. Or just from trying to get to the barrier? Just for a bit, so we can clear our heads. I really don't think I'm doing well with all this heat and fire, and you- well, uh…"

Chara sighed, and looked up from the floor at last. It was a bit hard to tell, due to the translucence of their face, but their eyes seemed a bit more red than usual.

"You said you wanted to talk to Papyrus, right? That doesn't seem like such a bad idea."

Danny brought a hand up to his chin, contemplated for a moment, and then smirked. "Not a bad idea at all…"

Danny switched into his ghost form with a flash of light, and all the sickliness seemed to vanish from his being. He looked as healthy as a dead person could be.

With that, the two decided to make a side-trip in order to cool off and unwind.

But by making this decision, Danny didn't realize exactly how heated the next chapter of his life was going to get.

…

 **Danny could literally just fly through the entire Underground no problem, so creating obstacles and situations for him to get past is literally the hardest thing in the whole world. At this point Chara can be considered a road block. Also, god help Alphys, absolutely nothing is going according to plan.  
Anyway though, it's nice to see you guys after about a year, a month, and approximately 8 days. Also, whoopsie doopsie, that took a while, but I think I'm a bit better at writing things now. I would infuse more comedy and/or action into this chapter, but you're going to get more of that soon enough, I wanted this to be a bit more of a feely feel journey, I don't know.**

 **I also just want to say, just so nobody gets disappointed, I don't intend to create any romantic relationships in this story. I am deathly allergic to romance, sorry. The only romantic relationships in this story will be canon ones, and anything else is platonic and/or familiar.**

 **And fyi, YOU FOOLS, DID YOU THINK I WOULD ABANDON THIS STORY? I AIN'T A LIAR. I said I wouldn't a leave it, and I'm not, even if it takes me actual years to finish another chapter.**

 **Flames will be used to light a warm fire for me to fall asleep next to, dear lord, it is 1AM and I am very tired**


End file.
